May 10, 2024 • 36 mins
John Bonnes stops by the studio to discuss the red hot Twins, Timberwolves/Nuggets, & more!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Man want to win a VIP tripfor two to Ballards Resort, Then head
over to our contest page and enterto win a BIP package that includes two
nights lodging for two and two daysof guide at Walleye Fishing ESKMPA dot com
(00:22):
keyword contest to enter today, Finalhours for PA. He'll be back on
Monday. Hopefully maybe Wolves fans willbe celebrating a sweep. But let's not
(00:43):
get ahead of ourselves. Champs arestill the Champs until no longer be in
the Champs. Max Fuller producing andat twins Geek via Twitter. John Bonus
is in studio. How you doing, man, Hi kids? How we
doing? Oh fantastic, riding thisgame three vibe and I'm excited and you're
riding this Happy birthday vibe A littlenervous. Yeah, yeah, I'm Happy
birthday to me fifty seven years old. I'm getting up there. Man,
(01:06):
you look fifty six. Thanks.I just want to I just wanted to
tell you that you look I was. I'm only two days older than fifty
six. As it turns out,Hey, think young, stay young,
feel young? Right? Absolutely?Will you're will You're downtown Doddling. Take
you anywhere near And I know you'rekind of for sure a different part of
downtown, but you're gonna be nearthe mix tonight, right sure? Yeah,
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I mean we've been doddling all weekto Target Field, will certainly be
doddling near Target Center. I don'tthink we're going to the game. I
don't think we were around when ticketswent on sale, so we missed out
on that. But there's like elevenbars or something in and around Target Field
that are going to be or TargetCenter. They're gonna be showing the game
and will either hit one of thoseor one of our own favorite hangouts.
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Maybe we were at Eighth Street Grilllast night. That was a good one,
uh uh to watch the game.And they're they're included in that.
We're probably maybe Dan Kelly's. Idon't know, we'll see. Yeah,
absolutely, just great places around therewalk and talk and have years and no,
it's it's an, isn't it.And you've you know, living downtown
and being you know, you've beena you know, you've been to Target
Field many many, many, manymany many times. But how alive this
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thing is and and that that citycomes alive for Vikings, Tailgating and all
of that, but it's always disjointed, of course, trying to work that
into an urban environment, but justeverything from social everything from a reporting standpoint.
We get up when the when thewhen the vibe is good and and
it's it's the first time in years, I think, John, we can
really taste and we can really dareto dream a little bit about one of
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our teams. I mean, thisfeels like what the ninety eight, ninety
nine Vikings something like that. Itfeels like that this team just feels different.
And and I'm honestly, I thinkone of the things I think maybe
the reason I like sports is becauseI like the community that sports built.
You know, so when you getan opportunity like this where you know the
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entire city is paying attention to thesame thing and we're kind of all rallying
around it, like I want,it would kill me to watch that game
at home alone, you know whatI mean? I would Why would I
want to miss out? You cango anywhere and talk to everybody and have
and feel that sort of shared communalvibe. And I'm very excited about today,
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and I'm very excited about something thatI'm very excited to see where this
goes so well, I'm going tobe at whether I can be at the
games or not. Like you,get get out there, absolutely, get
out go somewhere. I'm going tobe at Freehouse tonight doing a watch party,
giving away some some gift cards.Oh yeah, no, it's going
to be uh jeers and hopes.No, it's it's awesome right there on
Washington. So looking forward to that. The speaking of vibes with the baseball
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team, Yes, sir, cool, you beat the White Sox and the
Angels. That's cute. But bestingthe Red Sox and the Mariners, and
in some the manner in which it'shappened, I mean, that's becoming a
real thing too. Johnny. Yeah, well, I mean they you know,
the team was seven and thirteen andwhat was struggling was the hitting,
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right, they couldn't hit, andwhen that was a big surprise because we
expected, I expected the lineup tobe the strength of this team. And
then yeah, they got better versusthe White Sox and the Ages. It's
one thing to be better going sevento three. It's another thing to go
ten and zero, right versus thoseguys. But the question still was,
yeah, but you know, canthe offense stay alive when it's not facing
you know, some pretty crummy pitchingstaffs, which is what they hit before.
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Well, yeah, apparently they canbecause both the Red Sox and Mariners
have really good tvras. Like thoseare two good pitching teams, and this
team just continues to keep hitting.You used to consistently put up like five
six runs a game, and whenyou do that, you're gonna put yourself
into an opportunity to win a lotof games, especially when you're pitching.
(04:53):
Also seems to be holding up prettywell. Yeah, it's I think I
saw something. You can tell meif I'm wrong. Got all the numbers
in your head somewhere. The Marinerswere like the second best ERA team either
in Major League Baseball definitely the AmericanLeague. And now they're leaving. They're
licking their wounds, headed back homeor wherever they're headed next with like the
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twenty third or twenty fourth best ERA. You were there and attendant celebrating your
birthday. What a place to be, and you watched them put what ten
or eleven on them yesterday? Thesebats are cooking the man. Yeah,
I mean I'm taking on it rightnow. Let's see TM era for Yeah,
three point three three for the SeattleMaritags. Pretty good team era right,
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fifth overall in the American League.Boston Red Sox number one in the
American League, two point seven totwo. Yeah, and they just hung
up. Just took five out ofseven from those two teams. So yeah,
this is and by the way,getting to some really good pitchers really
early, like jumping on them.You don't want to be late to a
game at target Field this year becausethey're putting up a five spot on Gilbert,
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They're putting up you know, they'rehitting three home runs in the first
two innings. Like this is athis is a team that can jump on
even really good starting pitching and makeit look make it look silly. And
then when you can turn over therest of the game to Pablo Lopez or
you know, are resurging Chris Paddockmakes it makes it for a very enjoyment
maybe a little boring actually kind ofa little boring boring baseball game. You
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just sit there and show your beardand the sunshine. Yeah, super super
boring. That sounds like as thingshave come together, given the start to
the season. You were you werejust in Japan, do you think you
could have gotten that rally sausage throughcustoms. I don't know what this thing
looks like. They're headed Toronto thisweekend. I helped them apparently through a
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twelve game win streak of sorts,and they and they supposedly said they were
going to retire it after the twelvegame win streak stopped. And then they
decided in the middle of the afterthe after the first loss, about the
fifth inning, that the next gamethey weren't hitting, they went and grabbed
it again brought it back out,So that sausage is still still making its
way around in the in the dugoutand still being used as a room temperature
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whatever whatever. You know. Imean, it's a shell stable food.
Yeah, I'm just thinking. Imean, if if I can I bring
toxic chemicals on a plane, Idon't think I can. I don't think
that's safe. I mean, youopen that thing in a pressurized cabin.
I don't know what. I don'tknow what. We have a great story
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on Twins Daily Today by Ramball Stuwho writes a lot of our satire,
talking about how what what it's likehaving these kind of good vibes around Minos.
The sports and how weird it isand described, uh, describe Rocco
Baldelli as looking like, you know, the father of twenty six you know,
high school teenagers. And he's justgets rubbing his head, rubbing his
temples as he thinks about what thehell they they're doing to this poor sausage.
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So yeah, it's, uh,that's you know, but that's the
football, baby, that's the beautyof it. It's got to be something
stupid to be able to turn ateam that ebbs where you know, two
thirds of the lineup was underneath theMendoza line. Yeah two Now they are
the best offense in the American League. It's it's it's unbelievable. And and
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but you mentioned that and in TwinsDaily dot com to read whether it's satire
or or news reports and and getit all Twins Daily is the Wolves are
doing what they're doing. Twins aredoing what they're doing. We've got Vikings
rookie camp this weekend. Everyone wants, you know, how's JJ doing,
how's JJ as in JJ McCarthy Andwhen are they going to sign Justin Jefferson
and all of that. I mean, the getting is so good right now.
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Then there's the wild, but butall the same, maybe next year,
Okay, they got cap problems,we can sell that away for another
year and a half or so.But it's just it's it's unbelievable. And
you got to new coach and they'rehandling business. Is that easy? And
I feel I was one of theguys. I loved Adrian Heath with the
Loons, but but it wasn't working, so they had to make a change.
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Uh. Speaking of of things thatthat are good right now, as
the beat goes on, Max Kepler, we were ready to send Max Kepler
to whoever you know, do notyou know, one way trip anywhere.
It felt like was part of theconversation a year ago and eleven game hitting
streak and all of that, likewhat you know, all those players that
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weren't hitting well early and now doingtheir thing. I think Max almost above
and beyond. I don't know ifit's a massive surprise or not. Maybe
it should be, but he's beenas good as it gets over the last
two and a half weeks. Yeah, he I mean last year was he
was terrible in the first half.He had a terrible first half of the
year last year. And you're right, we were we the Cleaning of the
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Geek podcast was pretty adamant in tryingto get rid of Max Kepler or find
room, make room on the rosterand bring up some of the left handed
hitting talent they have in the miners. Right, So you guys, were
you pitchforks at the door. Guys, we were lobbying for change that he
was available, that's right. Andwhat happened was he caught on fire.
(10:00):
He was one of the best hittersin the American League in the second half
of the year since he has comeoff the the injured list. From you
first, he had a terrible firstweek, but he was also at a
terrible first week in part because onthe first game he fouled a ball off
his knee, right, So Ithink he was one for twenty his first
week, right. Then he wenton the IL, get the knee fixed
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up. Then he came back andall he has done is hit his hit.
He's hit four thirty four since hecame back off the IL. He
put up a twelve forty seven ops. That's nuts, right, that's huge
numbers. And he's doing it inthe clutch. He's doing it when there's
runners on base. He's there'll bea runner on second base and Max will
trade place us with him. Well, he had those two. Maybe it
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was in the White Sox series.I'm trying to think it was at some
point the win streak. He hadeither a double that scored the go ahead
run the ninth and then the nextnight he had a sack fly last night
or yesterday he hits a home run. It's really just eight. That's the
record at target Field, the eightyhome runs. Is that accurate that he
tied Brian Doser for the most homeruns? That's right, Yeah, target
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Field, You've been moving up thelist and I knew he was one behind
somebody. Does that feel like alight number? It's been opened since twenty
ten. Does that feel like alight number? Does feel a little light
or is it just I mean,and it's it's hard to remember. Going
back to the truth, this isthat you know a lot of I mean,
the Twins haven't had a lot aton of big home run here.
There's only in recent years with thetwenty nineteen they had the like sort of
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a breakthrough. But yeah, thanthat, I haven't seen a lot of
thirty plays. I mean, Ithink one of the stories of twenty nineteen.
Why they were why it was soremarkable is it'd been so long since
they'd had thirty home run you know, multiple thirty home run guys. Right,
yeah, I think he's you know, he's got like fourteen RBI three
r three home runs already, fourteenrbi over that stretch. He's he's been
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really good. So and uh heand now he's hitting you know, clean
up or third or fourth. Andthe other guy who's you know, worked
his way up that lineup, upthat batting order and is absolutely dominating right
now is Ryan Jeffers, who's justdone uh, you know for a catcher
to be posting. You know,I think on the Gleaming of the Geek
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podcast today which is now just publishedbefore I got here free gleaming geek dot
com, uh, Aaron listed thefive guys who have an ops over one
thousand in Major League Baseball, andI mean it was all the guys you
would expect, like Ozuna and Sotoand you know, all the huge uh
Tani and it's fitting in there.At number five was Ryan Jeffers. And
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he plays catcher half the time,and when he's not playing catcher, he's
dhing, which you know, doesn'thave You don't see a catcher DH very
often on off unless it's Mike Piazza, you know. So, Yeah,
it's been a it's been a remarkableoffensive surge, and it's been driven largely
by those two guys. Ryan Jeffers, the next Mike Piazza. That's not
bad. I like that you saidit first, Twins Daily said it first,
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Ryan Jeffers, the next Beyonce.No, but he's been fantastic.
You mentioned shoe Otani though this popsin my head, the misahara, the
gambling bit. Have we all justkind of come to terms like this is
actually one of those things where theinterpreter guy he is as much a degenerate
as was reported, and that showA does actually appear to be as as
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originally daft throughout this entire thing ashe tried to play that he was.
When the news of this broke,I was pretty skeptical of sho hey Otani
not being involved in any way withme too, But I also said,
here's the thing they already know right. The reason that the fans had been
investigating this bookie for like six sevenmonths. They had raided his place back
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in November they had all his records, they had his photos up. They're
going to know who was doing what, and they will have And it was
four or five months ago. They'vedone follow up investigations on a lot of
stuff. They already know what's goingon, right, So we will see,
we will find out fairly shit.And what we found out fairly shortly
is this guy has been taking moneyfrom Otani left and right. Yeah,
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he's been he's and he's been takingmoney taking money from Otani. He had
been racking up enormous gambling debts withwith this guy, like thirty million dollars
worth a gambling debts are insane,It's crazy. So yeah, I think
I think sho Hay is probably offthe hook. If sho Hay would have
been on the hook, I thinkwe would have known that too. Yeah,
right, I think I think itwould have been it would have been
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clear. But yeah, he seemsto be pretty free and clear. And
this guy seems to have a realhis uh his uh interpreter shives to have
a real problem. So my mypositivity back to the Twins is not just
Max Kepler being in love with whatI've seen from him over the last couple
of weeks and and the way youbuilt it up really since the second half
of last year and then he's dingedup early but now but now he's in
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the mix. But just trying tofigure out how excited I should be about
Simeon Woods Richardson, and just tryingto trying to weave my way through,
you know, no Sunny Gray KentTomatas with the Tigers now, I think,
and I haven't followed to see howthey're doing this season, but into
this year, it's like, howhe hasn't the Tigers in general? Well,
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it's tigers are all right, whatis the what is the Al Central
is just kind of a four horserace, right, it's his potentially historically
bad White Sox and then everybody else. I am surprised. I'm surprised how
good Cleveland's been. I'm surprised howgood the Royals have been. Uh,
I'm a little surprised by the Tigers, but I expected them to be,
you know, about five hundred,maybe a little bit under five hundred overall.
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But then of course the story reallyis that the White Socks are and
just complete meltdown right now, sothat that that does help the rest of
the Division, you know, climbabove five hundred when you can just bank
on you know, a seven andoh run against against the White Socks would
essentially saved the twin seasons. Soare the are the White Sox? I
mean, can we put them inthat three Tigers camp? Can we put
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them in the they could? Maybethey lost one nineteen, I think,
I mean, could this White Soxincarnation lose one twenty? Could you fathom
that? I mean, we haveseen recently, and I think it's a
result of sort of the structure,financial structure of baseball that you can have
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some really crummy teams. I meanlast year we had Oakland, Yeah,
and then the start they got offto looked like they might be a historically
bad team, and oh three Tigerskind of situation. White Sox, I
mean that they have been playing ittrue, there's they beat Cleveland last night.
They they have been playing better lately. They did immediately after being you
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know, beat up by the Twins, they went and swept Tampa Bay Rays.
So you know, but you know, that's baseball baseball. You a
really good team wins sixty percent ofits game. A really bad team loses,
loses, you know, sixty percentof its games. So they're they're
not gonna be that. They're notgonna be You're not gonna go oh in
one hundred and sixty two. Butyeah, yeah they could be. And
here's the other thing about the WhiteSox. They're kind of blowing things up
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right now, like they're already tradingaway players and that we have not seen
in Major League basic well even andwe're seeing it from the Marlins to another
team that looks like it could behistorically bad. They just traded away Luisa
Rise last weekend at the San DiegoPadres and eat all of the money that
they're paying Luisa Rise for some prospectsthe fire they collect. Realize they're a
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ten win team too. The Marlinsare absolutely hideous. Both teams are,
and they're both selling in May,like every year, as we get every
year for we answer questions from Twinsfans like Leaving to the Geek, where
people are like, why don't theywhy do they wait until July to make
these trades? Like why wait untilJuly to fix the bullpen? Why wait
until July to get that starting pitcherthey need? And the answer always is
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who makes trade before July? Likenobody like, you've got to have another
team trade you somebody, right,And historically we have not seen teams dump
like that this early. We've seenit now twice in the last week from
two of the worst teams of midjorLeague Baseball. So maybe that's changing.
We'll see. Is there is therea worry? I mean, is is
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that worrisome at all? When youthink about pair? I mean last year
there were significant conversations about the athletics. I mean, whatever Baseball's version of,
you know, high end tanking is. The Vegas is on the horizon.
They don't care about their fans.You basically have thirty five hundred fans
at every game that are also likeprotesting at the same time how much they
hate things right. Uh. Now, that's a unique situation in some respects
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to Oakland. But the Marlins,save for the World Series runs, have
always saved for a few stars hereand there. They've kind of been middling
to bad right really for the mostpart. But to have multiple franchises potentially
that are all in the constant we'regonna rebuild, We're gonna we're gonna scrape
nickels and dimes wherever we can getthem. I mean, that can't be
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healthy. That's got to be alittle worries about it. I mean,
especially a team like the White Soxwhere you know they were in a rebuild
for years. Finally it looked likethey were about there, like twenty twenty,
twenty twenty one. Is this goingto be the new heavyweights of the
division. They had Lance Lynn,a couple of big hitters, a bray
you of course, and a coupleof things go wrong and suddenly that cycle
is already over. There are they'vealready gone. There's their window never really
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opened, period, and now they'vegot to start it all over again.
I mean, it's a it's aresult of the collective bargaining agreement, and
really it's a result of there isno salary cap in baseball. The salary
cap in baseball is been opposed mercilesslyby the Major League Baseball Players Association.
They don't want to have any kindof salary cap. They's a it's a
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line in the sand that they willnot cross. And as a result of
that, you also don't have anysort of minimum amount that you have to
spend. And then on top ofthat, Major League Baseball ownership has things
like revenue sharing, such that ifyou don't make a lot of revenue,
you end up getting money from someof the bigger teams in the which sounds
like a good idea, but whatit really means is those teams that go
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ahead and take are sure to beprofitable. Yeah, despite the fact that
they're not drawing any fans or theydon't have any corporate sponsors or whatever.
They're getting so much money from TVrevenue and not even actively trying to win,
right, yes, and getting moneyfrom all the other teams that are
trying to win and have to payluxury taxes, those luxury tax that luxury
tax money goes to those teams thataren't trying. So the most sure oddly
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enough, the most surefire way tomake money in Major League Baseball is to
suck, right, And so you'reproviding this incent built in incentive to have
some really bad Major League Baseball teams. And I mean that they just they
just got through a collective bargaining agreementbefore the twenty twenty two season. I
think it's five or six years long. So that's not going to change.
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It's not going to change anywhere inyour future. And you can't build in
the sort of things like that youcan maybe build in with like the NFL
or where the draft is so importantthat you know you can mix up the
nobody. People don't pay much attentionto Major League Baseball talent. Know those
guys are gonna be here for fouror five years, so you know,
it's hard to find those incentive structuresto keep people from tanking when it's a
(21:15):
guaranteed profit. That's John Bonas TwinsDaily at Twins Geek via the Twitter and
X Machine and of course Zone coverage. I mean, he's got his fingers
and toes dipped into every aspect ofMinnesota sports. One more segment with John
jump back into the positive side ofbaseball that the Twins are actually trying to
win and they're doing it at apretty damn high clip right now, So
(21:37):
loving that. Another segment with Bonus. It's Nordoin for Pa Max Fullers here
as well, and he's got acash opportunity for you the fan and big
deck dot Com want to give youa shot to put a grant in your
hand with our national cash contest.Enter the keyword fun at Kafman dot com
now for your shot at winning.That's keyword fun. Enter it now at
k f A N dot Dan.Don't miss Game three between your Minnesota Timberwolves
(22:15):
and the Denver Nuggets tonight when ittips off at eight thirty PM, with
the pre game show starting at aand the pregame party with me at seven
to eight. Catch it all righthere on FM one hundred point three KVN
and anywhere on the free iHeartRadio app. Are you gonna pick all these places
to go tonight? Wolves fans?It feels good, It feels good.
(22:44):
Freehouse is the is where you're gonnabe, mister. The Freehouse is where
I'll be. Target Center is whereMax will be. Definite de bonus.
I'll wave at you in the cave. I'm trying to It's not it's not
a where's Waldo? It's a hmmsomething something bonus because you're gonna be bouncing
around downtown tonight too. Absolutely partof the party, part of the hysteria.
(23:07):
Just talking off air, I meanjust the like craving this atmosphere is
I mean, hashtag Wolves back.It's gonna be unbelievable. I'm really excited
about about the vibe in downtown thisweekend. It's going to be fantastic.
The vibe with the Minnesota Twins ispretty good. They're at Toronto to take
on the Blue Jays this weekend,and then they bounce back, and I
(23:29):
think it's the Yankees a target fieldstarting Tuesday, Wendy Thursday, Yankees coming
to town. And if we're followingthe schedule, Chris Paddock should be on
the on the mound against Rodin onTuesday. And Chris Paddock's interesting good times,
bad times, good times, badtimes, good times, good times.
Paddock, of course, you know, in relief in the postseason series
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coming back. I think it washis second Tommy Johns finally gets healthy.
He's back in the postseason last year, and I thought he I thought he
looked pretty damn good in't those shortlittle stints right right. That's one of
the reasons we were kind of excitedabout seeing how he could be as a
starter. In part. You justsee a guy come back as a reliever
and he's thrown ninety eight miles perhour. It's easy to kind of get
excited about. You at least knowthat the Tommy Todd surgery wasn't messed up
(24:15):
at that point. Now, otherthan I think, yeah, Baltimore.
Baltimore just put it on him nineearned and then again it's good times bad
times with him. It was theAngels, albeit as part of a victory,
but he gave up four in thatone. What do you make as
kind of the up and down aspectsof how he's performed. You know,
he's got games. He bounced backfrom the nine runs to go six seven
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scoreless with ten k's. He's gotten k's last night. Like, what
is it about Paddock's game? Maybeif this becomes more of the average,
what do we love about Chris Paddockbeing in this rotation? I mean,
he's working through a lot of stuffright Like a he's coming back, bouncing
back from Tommy John surgery. Likeas a result of that, you know,
a lot of guys their first yearback sort of struggle with their control.
(24:57):
The elbow is where the control is. That's when when you have Tommy
John surgery. That's the last thingto come back is the control. On
top of that, you know,he's always been a fastball, change up
pitcher, and he was trying toadd a pitch this time. He's trying
to add this sweeper or slider whateverit is that he can throw on a
regular basis to to supplement the youknow, two really good pitches. He's
(25:21):
had the change up in the fastballwell. As a result of that,
what we've seen is his change uphas been a little less consistent than we've
seen in the past. And Ithink that's been part of what has been
going on. I mean, Ithink in general, like, yes,
he gave up four runs at time. He also had a couple of short
outings early on. You know,overall, he's been a really good throw
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you throw out the one enormous,enormously bad start, which frankly, he
was also kind of left in beyondthe point most starting pitchers would have been,
uh, left in to kind ofeat that they were had a beat
up bullpen, and so you're justgonna just like we're gonna add three or
four runs your e RA that wouldnot normally be you know, part of
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your e RA. But you know, his strikeout rate has been really strong.
He's had really good control. Ithink he's got eight walks all year,
you know, uh, and whenyou can strike people out and you
don't put them on base, you'reusually and he hasn't seemed to really have
a home run issue or anything likethat, other than like that one.
Uh that one, real real badouting. So uh, I'm optimistic about
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Patty. I mean, the questionreally is going to be how they're gonna
be careful about how much they usehim. Yeah, coming off of Tommy
John surgery, you don't want tolean into a guy too much. And
I think what they're going to tryand do is try to be conservative about
how much they use them. Iwouldn't be shocked if, you know,
he ends up having a couple ofstays on the I l you know,
(26:48):
just to sort of give him alittle break, or skips a spot,
skips a rotation spot or two sometimemid season, just to try and keep
him fresh, because I mean,he's got the up side of a you
know, number two starter yep.And you know, when you get to
the playoffs, that's what you're lookingfor. You're looking at somebody who could
be a playoff caliber starter. Hecan be that, but yeah, he
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can also he can also have somerough outings. How tough is it sticking
with the pitching staff? And Iwas joking, you know, should I
get my Simian Woods richardson Suersey justbecause and it hasn't been beautiful at times.
You know, he's conceiding a bunchof hits. His things are getting
a little harry once in a whilewith him, but he's he's getting out
alive, right. And how difficultis it when you mentioned you know,
(27:32):
guys get out of bed like Paddockand they just toss it ninety eight and
it's becoming a speed game, rightand just flamethrowers left and right. Then
you got a guy that throws it. And maybe it's a similar conversation to
Kent to my ata. You knowhe's getting it was it was wow,
he's consistently hitting ninety two or ninetythree, right, And Simeon Woods Richardson,
I think is kind of in asimilar spot where it's he adds a
(27:55):
mile to it. Well, nowit's ninety two. You know, learning
how to pitch and win with thosetypes of pitches, placement game, all
of that. Is it just anaturally a tougher road for the Woods Richardson's
of the world. I mean withWoods Richardson, he was a top prospect
that was traded to the Twins fromthe Blue Jays for Jose Burrios. So
he'll be going back to his oldorganization. He and Austin more, we
(28:18):
get Jose this weekend. We didnot get Jose Barrios this weekend. He
pitched two days ago and got beatup, roughed up by the Fills.
He didn't farewell against the Twins lastyear. Either did well. No,
he did pretty well though in theplayoffs. They ended up pulling him early
after you know, one time throughthe lineup or something, and they man
caught hell for that. Yeah,Sami was. Richardson was a top prospect
(28:41):
who's velocity was gradually kind of decreasingwithin his time with the Twins organization,
which is unusual. Like they've gotsuccess story after success story after success story
of guys whose velocity have climbed.That's why Louis Varland is a prospect.
That's why Bailey ober is a prospectright or a successful pitcher. Richardson's had
(29:03):
been going down and down and underto the point where last year he got
knocked around in Triple A pretty muchand he was only averaging you know,
ninety miles an hour with his fastball. And this offseason he and the Twins
basically took a look and said wegot to go back to pitching sort of
your use your athleticism and quit tryingto part of the reason his fastball wasn't
(29:26):
going very fast as he was tryingto sort of deceive people as to when
the fastball was coming. He waschanging his arm slot to match the armslot
that he had with the various breakingpitches that he does or the various slower
pitches that he does, and asa result of that, he was losing
a couple miles per hour on thefastball. Well, they just amped that,
but let's go back to the oldway and make it a little more
rotational. And as a result ofthat, we saw in spring training day
(29:47):
one he was throwing ninety four milesper hour. Now that doesn't sound that
fast, right, but when you'vebeen pitching and surviving at eighty nine miles
per hour, I'll throw at ninetyfour miles per hour. Is a game
changer, right, absolute game changer. How excited you can get about him,
I mean I think he can getpretty excited about him. He was
a top prospect, and you knowthe fact that he had gone tumbled down
(30:07):
the prospect list after reviews. We'rekind of seeing what we expected from him.
Three or four years ago. He'salways been young for whatever minor league
level he's been in. He's alsoyou know, he's he's never had problems
with the secondary pitches, which otherpitchers generally, you know, usually it's
like, oh, he's got goodfastball, he's got a you know,
a good slider, but he needsto work in his change ever. So,
(30:30):
no, all those other pitches havebeen fine. The fastball was the
problem, and now the fastball isfixed, you know. As a result
of that, I think that theexpectation is maybe he'll be sort of a
mid rotation guy. I actually wouldgo higher than that. I feel like
he has a ceiling of a playoffcaliber starter now that we you know,
we'll we'll have to see him continuethis kind of success. But they've just
(30:51):
got a one point seven four eraright now. Bad Well, I mean,
you know, it's four or fivestarts, but you know that's worth
sticking around and finding out more.Absolutely, the only question I have left
for you, do you need fourfingers or five fingers to hold up when
it's wolves in four or five?How do we how do we feel?
(31:12):
I went into Game two thinking wewere going to see the best of the
Nuggets right that they'd kind of futzedaround through the Lakers series and you know,
we'd show you that. You know, Game one they didn't start out
very well, and they were goingto come out Game two and really try
and show that they were the champs. And then it went exactly the opposite
(31:33):
of that way. They got thrownout of their game early. And if
that was their best, well thenit's going before. I mean, it's
just a matter of how much theWolves want to play with their prey at
that point, you know, howmuch do they want to play with their
food? Uh? You know?Now, I would also say Denver has
(31:55):
had three days to hear not justlike their own fans and not just Wolves
fans, but the entire national mediawrite them off, right, And for
three days they've been thinking about that. So I think we're going to see
them come out on fire this game. Now. Unfortunately they got to do
it on the road. Yep,No, you know, that can still
(32:15):
happen, but I'm I'm hesitant thatthey can show a lot more than they
were able to show on Game two. So I'm going to say it four.
I'm going to say Monday morning,when we are doing the leam into
the Geek Patreon podcast, which isgoing to be an hour and a half
talk about Twins. It's going toend with a half hour of Wolves talk
(32:37):
as it did last week, wherewe are just going to be talking about
the sweep and now whether we'd ratherface Oklahoma City or Dallas. No.
I love it, I love it. Thank you, Johnny, thanks for
hanging out in studio man, Thanksfor the invitation. The birthday boy doesn't
look a day over fifty six.John Bonus at Twins Geek via Twitter and
then of course Twins Daily dot Comzone coverage all things Minnesota sports. John
(33:01):
is intimately acquainted with and covers itnicely, So thank you to John.
Final segment will kind of just unloadthe notebook on Wolves and Nuggets Game three
and send you on to the program. Final segment nine to noon is next
final segment nine to noon Wolves HeavyVibe from Chad Greenway opening the show Denver
(33:24):
Perspective with Scott Hastings and Troy Rinkfrom Altitude Sports and The Denver Post,
respectively. You just heard John Bonusand studio the Twins Geek. He's going
to be dawdling his way to targetCenter tonight as well. We're all over
the place. Max, you're atat the Target Center. I'll be at
Freehouse for a watch party for theentirety of the game. I'll get there
(33:46):
around eight PM, ton of fiftydollars Free House gift cards to give away
and just post up, have acouple of beers, and hopefully watch a
Game three victory for the home squadWolves and Nuggets at Target Center. Tonight
tip off shortly after more like whenmaybe closer to nine, who knows between
eight thirty and nine. Eventually we'regoing to get to watch some basketball pre
(34:07):
game eight o'clock. The pre tothe pre the party in the Cage starts
at seven with you. Max.Final thoughts on hopefully ringing up another w
tonight, Yeah, I'm I thinkthe Nuggets are either going to come out
two ways here. They're going tolook more of what we saw in Game
two, just defeated. Heart's rippedout of their chest. I don't know
if you ever played Mortal Kombat asa kid, but you know when that
(34:29):
when they're about to do the fatalityand they're just kind of wobblin. I
used to blood Code by Heart,right, I've forgotten it right before the
voice is finished, sumed like that'skind of the Nuggets are the wobbly guy
right now, and the Wolves canrip their heart out tonight with a three
to zero victory. But they're thechamps and I expect them to come out
with some fight. Let's not forgetthat. This team that made one,
not one, but two three toone comebacks in previous playoffs before with Nikola
(34:53):
Jokic. But I think it kindof all depends on how Jamal Murray is
going to show up tonight. WhenJokic is gonna get his He's going to
be the passer and score that weknow him to be, perhaps maybe even
more aggressive than we've seen him inthe first two games, as Troy was
talking about earlier. But I thinkI think it all kind of rides on
how good Jamal Murray can be,and I just I just don't see him
having a breakout game when you gotguys like Nikhil, Alexander Walker and Jade
(35:15):
McDaniels, who the Wolves fans havedubbed it gnaw and order earlier this week
because they got Tamom Murray locked up. Uh So I expect another Wolves win
and uh. And we're going tobe howling and partying on into the weekend.
So whether you're you're hanging out withMax, you're finding me at Free
House having a couple of beers,you're following the Bouncing Bonus around Minneapolis.
(35:37):
It's going to be fun. AndI'm with you as we put a rap
on Nine to Noon. It's it'sgot to be. It's got to be
the punch who survives it. AndI do think that Denver comes out here
on fire tonight, but what doesthat look like? We also have the
four time defensive Player of the Yearback in the midst New Dad, New
Reason to Fight, and he's goingto be He's going to be on the
(35:58):
court. I just can't wait forthis thing. Thank you so much to
everybody, not only for joining nineto Noon, but those for listening to
nine to Noon and Max sitting inmy chair today me and PA's chair.
You being a Wolves loving roube andlistening the program is next. Everybody have
an awesome afternoon podcast. Today's PaulAllen Joe. We're listening back to previous
(36:49):
show and interviews like going to theiHeartRadio app for GFVN dot com.
Man want to win a VIP tripfor two to Ballards Resort, Then head
over to our contest page and enterto win a BIP package that includes two
nights lodging for two and two daysof guide at Walleye Fishing ESKMPA dot com
(00:22):
keyword contest to enter today, Finalhours for PA. He'll be back on
Monday. Hopefully maybe Wolves fans willbe celebrating a sweep. But let's not
(00:43):
get ahead of ourselves. Champs arestill the Champs until no longer be in
the Champs. Max Fuller producing andat twins Geek via Twitter. John Bonus
is in studio. How you doing, man, Hi kids? How we
doing? Oh fantastic, riding thisgame three vibe and I'm excited and you're
riding this Happy birthday vibe A littlenervous. Yeah, yeah, I'm Happy
birthday to me fifty seven years old. I'm getting up there. Man,
(01:06):
you look fifty six. Thanks.I just want to I just wanted to
tell you that you look I was. I'm only two days older than fifty
six. As it turns out,Hey, think young, stay young,
feel young? Right? Absolutely?Will you're will You're downtown Doddling. Take
you anywhere near And I know you'rekind of for sure a different part of
downtown, but you're gonna be nearthe mix tonight, right sure? Yeah,
(01:27):
I mean we've been doddling all weekto Target Field, will certainly be
doddling near Target Center. I don'tthink we're going to the game. I
don't think we were around when ticketswent on sale, so we missed out
on that. But there's like elevenbars or something in and around Target Field
that are going to be or TargetCenter. They're gonna be showing the game
and will either hit one of thoseor one of our own favorite hangouts.
(01:47):
Maybe we were at Eighth Street Grilllast night. That was a good one,
uh uh to watch the game.And they're they're included in that.
We're probably maybe Dan Kelly's. Idon't know, we'll see. Yeah,
absolutely, just great places around therewalk and talk and have years and no,
it's it's an, isn't it.And you've you know, living downtown
and being you know, you've beena you know, you've been to Target
Field many many, many, manymany many times. But how alive this
(02:12):
thing is and and that that citycomes alive for Vikings, Tailgating and all
of that, but it's always disjointed, of course, trying to work that
into an urban environment, but justeverything from social everything from a reporting standpoint.
We get up when the when thewhen the vibe is good and and
it's it's the first time in years, I think, John, we can
really taste and we can really dareto dream a little bit about one of
(02:36):
our teams. I mean, thisfeels like what the ninety eight, ninety
nine Vikings something like that. Itfeels like that this team just feels different.
And and I'm honestly, I thinkone of the things I think maybe
the reason I like sports is becauseI like the community that sports built.
You know, so when you getan opportunity like this where you know the
(02:59):
entire city is paying attention to thesame thing and we're kind of all rallying
around it, like I want,it would kill me to watch that game
at home alone, you know whatI mean? I would Why would I
want to miss out? You cango anywhere and talk to everybody and have
and feel that sort of shared communalvibe. And I'm very excited about today,
(03:22):
and I'm very excited about something thatI'm very excited to see where this
goes so well, I'm going tobe at whether I can be at the
games or not. Like you,get get out there, absolutely, get
out go somewhere. I'm going tobe at Freehouse tonight doing a watch party,
giving away some some gift cards.Oh yeah, no, it's going
to be uh jeers and hopes.No, it's it's awesome right there on
Washington. So looking forward to that. The speaking of vibes with the baseball
(03:46):
team, Yes, sir, cool, you beat the White Sox and the
Angels. That's cute. But bestingthe Red Sox and the Mariners, and
in some the manner in which it'shappened, I mean, that's becoming a
real thing too. Johnny. Yeah, well, I mean they you know,
the team was seven and thirteen andwhat was struggling was the hitting,
(04:08):
right, they couldn't hit, andwhen that was a big surprise because we
expected, I expected the lineup tobe the strength of this team. And
then yeah, they got better versusthe White Sox and the Ages. It's
one thing to be better going sevento three. It's another thing to go
ten and zero, right versus thoseguys. But the question still was,
yeah, but you know, canthe offense stay alive when it's not facing
you know, some pretty crummy pitchingstaffs, which is what they hit before.
(04:30):
Well, yeah, apparently they canbecause both the Red Sox and Mariners
have really good tvras. Like thoseare two good pitching teams, and this
team just continues to keep hitting.You used to consistently put up like five
six runs a game, and whenyou do that, you're gonna put yourself
into an opportunity to win a lotof games, especially when you're pitching.
(04:53):
Also seems to be holding up prettywell. Yeah, it's I think I
saw something. You can tell meif I'm wrong. Got all the numbers
in your head somewhere. The Marinerswere like the second best ERA team either
in Major League Baseball definitely the AmericanLeague. And now they're leaving. They're
licking their wounds, headed back homeor wherever they're headed next with like the
(05:15):
twenty third or twenty fourth best ERA. You were there and attendant celebrating your
birthday. What a place to be, and you watched them put what ten
or eleven on them yesterday? Thesebats are cooking the man. Yeah,
I mean I'm taking on it rightnow. Let's see TM era for Yeah,
three point three three for the SeattleMaritags. Pretty good team era right,
(05:36):
fifth overall in the American League.Boston Red Sox number one in the
American League, two point seven totwo. Yeah, and they just hung
up. Just took five out ofseven from those two teams. So yeah,
this is and by the way,getting to some really good pitchers really
early, like jumping on them.You don't want to be late to a
game at target Field this year becausethey're putting up a five spot on Gilbert,
(05:57):
They're putting up you know, they'rehitting three home runs in the first
two innings. Like this is athis is a team that can jump on
even really good starting pitching and makeit look make it look silly. And
then when you can turn over therest of the game to Pablo Lopez or
you know, are resurging Chris Paddockmakes it makes it for a very enjoyment
maybe a little boring actually kind ofa little boring boring baseball game. You
(06:19):
just sit there and show your beardand the sunshine. Yeah, super super
boring. That sounds like as thingshave come together, given the start to
the season. You were you werejust in Japan, do you think you
could have gotten that rally sausage throughcustoms. I don't know what this thing
looks like. They're headed Toronto thisweekend. I helped them apparently through a
(06:42):
twelve game win streak of sorts,and they and they supposedly said they were
going to retire it after the twelvegame win streak stopped. And then they
decided in the middle of the afterthe after the first loss, about the
fifth inning, that the next gamethey weren't hitting, they went and grabbed
it again brought it back out,So that sausage is still still making its
way around in the in the dugoutand still being used as a room temperature
(07:03):
whatever whatever. You know. Imean, it's a shell stable food.
Yeah, I'm just thinking. Imean, if if I can I bring
toxic chemicals on a plane, Idon't think I can. I don't think
that's safe. I mean, youopen that thing in a pressurized cabin.
I don't know what. I don'tknow what. We have a great story
(07:25):
on Twins Daily Today by Ramball Stuwho writes a lot of our satire,
talking about how what what it's likehaving these kind of good vibes around Minos.
The sports and how weird it isand described, uh, describe Rocco
Baldelli as looking like, you know, the father of twenty six you know,
high school teenagers. And he's justgets rubbing his head, rubbing his
temples as he thinks about what thehell they they're doing to this poor sausage.
(07:47):
So yeah, it's, uh,that's you know, but that's the
football, baby, that's the beautyof it. It's got to be something
stupid to be able to turn ateam that ebbs where you know, two
thirds of the lineup was underneath theMendoza line. Yeah two Now they are
the best offense in the American League. It's it's it's unbelievable. And and
(08:09):
but you mentioned that and in TwinsDaily dot com to read whether it's satire
or or news reports and and getit all Twins Daily is the Wolves are
doing what they're doing. Twins aredoing what they're doing. We've got Vikings
rookie camp this weekend. Everyone wants, you know, how's JJ doing,
how's JJ as in JJ McCarthy Andwhen are they going to sign Justin Jefferson
and all of that. I mean, the getting is so good right now.
(08:33):
Then there's the wild, but butall the same, maybe next year,
Okay, they got cap problems,we can sell that away for another
year and a half or so.But it's just it's it's unbelievable. And
you got to new coach and they'rehandling business. Is that easy? And
I feel I was one of theguys. I loved Adrian Heath with the
Loons, but but it wasn't working, so they had to make a change.
(08:56):
Uh. Speaking of of things thatthat are good right now, as
the beat goes on, Max Kepler, we were ready to send Max Kepler
to whoever you know, do notyou know, one way trip anywhere.
It felt like was part of theconversation a year ago and eleven game hitting
streak and all of that, likewhat you know, all those players that
(09:18):
weren't hitting well early and now doingtheir thing. I think Max almost above
and beyond. I don't know ifit's a massive surprise or not. Maybe
it should be, but he's beenas good as it gets over the last
two and a half weeks. Yeah, he I mean last year was he
was terrible in the first half.He had a terrible first half of the
year last year. And you're right, we were we the Cleaning of the
(09:39):
Geek podcast was pretty adamant in tryingto get rid of Max Kepler or find
room, make room on the rosterand bring up some of the left handed
hitting talent they have in the miners. Right, So you guys, were
you pitchforks at the door. Guys, we were lobbying for change that he
was available, that's right. Andwhat happened was he caught on fire.
(10:00):
He was one of the best hittersin the American League in the second half
of the year since he has comeoff the the injured list. From you
first, he had a terrible firstweek, but he was also at a
terrible first week in part because onthe first game he fouled a ball off
his knee, right, So Ithink he was one for twenty his first
week, right. Then he wenton the IL, get the knee fixed
(10:22):
up. Then he came back andall he has done is hit his hit.
He's hit four thirty four since hecame back off the IL. He
put up a twelve forty seven ops. That's nuts, right, that's huge
numbers. And he's doing it inthe clutch. He's doing it when there's
runners on base. He's there'll bea runner on second base and Max will
trade place us with him. Well, he had those two. Maybe it
(10:45):
was in the White Sox series.I'm trying to think it was at some
point the win streak. He hadeither a double that scored the go ahead
run the ninth and then the nextnight he had a sack fly last night
or yesterday he hits a home run. It's really just eight. That's the
record at target Field, the eightyhome runs. Is that accurate that he
tied Brian Doser for the most homeruns? That's right, Yeah, target
(11:07):
Field, You've been moving up thelist and I knew he was one behind
somebody. Does that feel like alight number? It's been opened since twenty
ten. Does that feel like alight number? Does feel a little light
or is it just I mean,and it's it's hard to remember. Going
back to the truth, this isthat you know a lot of I mean,
the Twins haven't had a lot aton of big home run here.
There's only in recent years with thetwenty nineteen they had the like sort of
(11:28):
a breakthrough. But yeah, thanthat, I haven't seen a lot of
thirty plays. I mean, Ithink one of the stories of twenty nineteen.
Why they were why it was soremarkable is it'd been so long since
they'd had thirty home run you know, multiple thirty home run guys. Right,
yeah, I think he's you know, he's got like fourteen RBI three
r three home runs already, fourteenrbi over that stretch. He's he's been
(11:48):
really good. So and uh heand now he's hitting you know, clean
up or third or fourth. Andthe other guy who's you know, worked
his way up that lineup, upthat batting order and is absolutely dominating right
now is Ryan Jeffers, who's justdone uh, you know for a catcher
to be posting. You know,I think on the Gleaming of the Geek
(12:11):
podcast today which is now just publishedbefore I got here free gleaming geek dot
com, uh, Aaron listed thefive guys who have an ops over one
thousand in Major League Baseball, andI mean it was all the guys you
would expect, like Ozuna and Sotoand you know, all the huge uh
Tani and it's fitting in there.At number five was Ryan Jeffers. And
(12:35):
he plays catcher half the time,and when he's not playing catcher, he's
dhing, which you know, doesn'thave You don't see a catcher DH very
often on off unless it's Mike Piazza, you know. So, Yeah,
it's been a it's been a remarkableoffensive surge, and it's been driven largely
by those two guys. Ryan Jeffers, the next Mike Piazza. That's not
bad. I like that you saidit first, Twins Daily said it first,
(12:58):
Ryan Jeffers, the next Beyonce.No, but he's been fantastic.
You mentioned shoe Otani though this popsin my head, the misahara, the
gambling bit. Have we all justkind of come to terms like this is
actually one of those things where theinterpreter guy he is as much a degenerate
as was reported, and that showA does actually appear to be as as
(13:20):
originally daft throughout this entire thing ashe tried to play that he was.
When the news of this broke,I was pretty skeptical of sho hey Otani
not being involved in any way withme too, But I also said,
here's the thing they already know right. The reason that the fans had been
investigating this bookie for like six sevenmonths. They had raided his place back
(13:45):
in November they had all his records, they had his photos up. They're
going to know who was doing what, and they will have And it was
four or five months ago. They'vedone follow up investigations on a lot of
stuff. They already know what's goingon, right, So we will see,
we will find out fairly shit.And what we found out fairly shortly
is this guy has been taking moneyfrom Otani left and right. Yeah,
(14:05):
he's been he's and he's been takingmoney taking money from Otani. He had
been racking up enormous gambling debts withwith this guy, like thirty million dollars
worth a gambling debts are insane,It's crazy. So yeah, I think
I think sho Hay is probably offthe hook. If sho Hay would have
been on the hook, I thinkwe would have known that too. Yeah,
right, I think I think itwould have been it would have been
(14:28):
clear. But yeah, he seemsto be pretty free and clear. And
this guy seems to have a realhis uh his uh interpreter shives to have
a real problem. So my mypositivity back to the Twins is not just
Max Kepler being in love with whatI've seen from him over the last couple
of weeks and and the way youbuilt it up really since the second half
of last year and then he's dingedup early but now but now he's in
(14:50):
the mix. But just trying tofigure out how excited I should be about
Simeon Woods Richardson, and just tryingto trying to weave my way through,
you know, no Sunny Gray KentTomatas with the Tigers now, I think,
and I haven't followed to see howthey're doing this season, but into
this year, it's like, howhe hasn't the Tigers in general? Well,
(15:13):
it's tigers are all right, whatis the what is the Al Central
is just kind of a four horserace, right, it's his potentially historically
bad White Sox and then everybody else. I am surprised. I'm surprised how
good Cleveland's been. I'm surprised howgood the Royals have been. Uh,
I'm a little surprised by the Tigers, but I expected them to be,
you know, about five hundred,maybe a little bit under five hundred overall.
(15:35):
But then of course the story reallyis that the White Socks are and
just complete meltdown right now, sothat that that does help the rest of
the Division, you know, climbabove five hundred when you can just bank
on you know, a seven andoh run against against the White Socks would
essentially saved the twin seasons. Soare the are the White Sox? I
mean, can we put them inthat three Tigers camp? Can we put
(15:56):
them in the they could? Maybethey lost one nineteen, I think,
I mean, could this White Soxincarnation lose one twenty? Could you fathom
that? I mean, we haveseen recently, and I think it's a
result of sort of the structure,financial structure of baseball that you can have
(16:18):
some really crummy teams. I meanlast year we had Oakland, Yeah,
and then the start they got offto looked like they might be a historically
bad team, and oh three Tigerskind of situation. White Sox, I
mean that they have been playing ittrue, there's they beat Cleveland last night.
They they have been playing better lately. They did immediately after being you
(16:40):
know, beat up by the Twins, they went and swept Tampa Bay Rays.
So you know, but you know, that's baseball baseball. You a
really good team wins sixty percent ofits game. A really bad team loses,
loses, you know, sixty percentof its games. So they're they're
not gonna be that. They're notgonna be You're not gonna go oh in
one hundred and sixty two. Butyeah, yeah they could be. And
here's the other thing about the WhiteSox. They're kind of blowing things up
(17:03):
right now, like they're already tradingaway players and that we have not seen
in Major League basic well even andwe're seeing it from the Marlins to another
team that looks like it could behistorically bad. They just traded away Luisa
Rise last weekend at the San DiegoPadres and eat all of the money that
they're paying Luisa Rise for some prospectsthe fire they collect. Realize they're a
(17:26):
ten win team too. The Marlinsare absolutely hideous. Both teams are,
and they're both selling in May,like every year, as we get every
year for we answer questions from Twinsfans like Leaving to the Geek, where
people are like, why don't theywhy do they wait until July to make
these trades? Like why wait untilJuly to fix the bullpen? Why wait
until July to get that starting pitcherthey need? And the answer always is
(17:49):
who makes trade before July? Likenobody like, you've got to have another
team trade you somebody, right,And historically we have not seen teams dump
like that this early. We've seenit now twice in the last week from
two of the worst teams of midjorLeague Baseball. So maybe that's changing.
We'll see. Is there is therea worry? I mean, is is
(18:10):
that worrisome at all? When youthink about pair? I mean last year
there were significant conversations about the athletics. I mean, whatever Baseball's version of,
you know, high end tanking is. The Vegas is on the horizon.
They don't care about their fans.You basically have thirty five hundred fans
at every game that are also likeprotesting at the same time how much they
hate things right. Uh. Now, that's a unique situation in some respects
(18:33):
to Oakland. But the Marlins,save for the World Series runs, have
always saved for a few stars hereand there. They've kind of been middling
to bad right really for the mostpart. But to have multiple franchises potentially
that are all in the constant we'regonna rebuild, We're gonna we're gonna scrape
nickels and dimes wherever we can getthem. I mean, that can't be
(18:55):
healthy. That's got to be alittle worries about it. I mean,
especially a team like the White Soxwhere you know they were in a rebuild
for years. Finally it looked likethey were about there, like twenty twenty,
twenty twenty one. Is this goingto be the new heavyweights of the
division. They had Lance Lynn,a couple of big hitters, a bray
you of course, and a coupleof things go wrong and suddenly that cycle
is already over. There are they'vealready gone. There's their window never really
(19:18):
opened, period, and now they'vegot to start it all over again.
I mean, it's a it's aresult of the collective bargaining agreement, and
really it's a result of there isno salary cap in baseball. The salary
cap in baseball is been opposed mercilesslyby the Major League Baseball Players Association.
They don't want to have any kindof salary cap. They's a it's a
(19:41):
line in the sand that they willnot cross. And as a result of
that, you also don't have anysort of minimum amount that you have to
spend. And then on top ofthat, Major League Baseball ownership has things
like revenue sharing, such that ifyou don't make a lot of revenue,
you end up getting money from someof the bigger teams in the which sounds
like a good idea, but whatit really means is those teams that go
(20:04):
ahead and take are sure to beprofitable. Yeah, despite the fact that
they're not drawing any fans or theydon't have any corporate sponsors or whatever.
They're getting so much money from TVrevenue and not even actively trying to win,
right, yes, and getting moneyfrom all the other teams that are
trying to win and have to payluxury taxes, those luxury tax that luxury
tax money goes to those teams thataren't trying. So the most sure oddly
(20:30):
enough, the most surefire way tomake money in Major League Baseball is to
suck, right, And so you'reproviding this incent built in incentive to have
some really bad Major League Baseball teams. And I mean that they just they
just got through a collective bargaining agreementbefore the twenty twenty two season. I
think it's five or six years long. So that's not going to change.
(20:52):
It's not going to change anywhere inyour future. And you can't build in
the sort of things like that youcan maybe build in with like the NFL
or where the draft is so importantthat you know you can mix up the
nobody. People don't pay much attentionto Major League Baseball talent. Know those
guys are gonna be here for fouror five years, so you know,
it's hard to find those incentive structuresto keep people from tanking when it's a
(21:15):
guaranteed profit. That's John Bonas TwinsDaily at Twins Geek via the Twitter and
X Machine and of course Zone coverage. I mean, he's got his fingers
and toes dipped into every aspect ofMinnesota sports. One more segment with John
jump back into the positive side ofbaseball that the Twins are actually trying to
win and they're doing it at apretty damn high clip right now, So
(21:37):
loving that. Another segment with Bonus. It's Nordoin for Pa Max Fullers here
as well, and he's got acash opportunity for you the fan and big
deck dot Com want to give youa shot to put a grant in your
hand with our national cash contest.Enter the keyword fun at Kafman dot com
now for your shot at winning.That's keyword fun. Enter it now at
k f A N dot Dan.Don't miss Game three between your Minnesota Timberwolves
(22:15):
and the Denver Nuggets tonight when ittips off at eight thirty PM, with
the pre game show starting at aand the pregame party with me at seven
to eight. Catch it all righthere on FM one hundred point three KVN
and anywhere on the free iHeartRadio app. Are you gonna pick all these places
to go tonight? Wolves fans?It feels good, It feels good.
(22:44):
Freehouse is the is where you're gonnabe, mister. The Freehouse is where
I'll be. Target Center is whereMax will be. Definite de bonus.
I'll wave at you in the cave. I'm trying to It's not it's not
a where's Waldo? It's a hmmsomething something bonus because you're gonna be bouncing
around downtown tonight too. Absolutely partof the party, part of the hysteria.
(23:07):
Just talking off air, I meanjust the like craving this atmosphere is
I mean, hashtag Wolves back.It's gonna be unbelievable. I'm really excited
about about the vibe in downtown thisweekend. It's going to be fantastic.
The vibe with the Minnesota Twins ispretty good. They're at Toronto to take
on the Blue Jays this weekend,and then they bounce back, and I
(23:29):
think it's the Yankees a target fieldstarting Tuesday, Wendy Thursday, Yankees coming
to town. And if we're followingthe schedule, Chris Paddock should be on
the on the mound against Rodin onTuesday. And Chris Paddock's interesting good times,
bad times, good times, badtimes, good times, good times.
Paddock, of course, you know, in relief in the postseason series
(23:52):
coming back. I think it washis second Tommy Johns finally gets healthy.
He's back in the postseason last year, and I thought he I thought he
looked pretty damn good in't those shortlittle stints right right. That's one of
the reasons we were kind of excitedabout seeing how he could be as a
starter. In part. You justsee a guy come back as a reliever
and he's thrown ninety eight miles perhour. It's easy to kind of get
excited about. You at least knowthat the Tommy Todd surgery wasn't messed up
(24:15):
at that point. Now, otherthan I think, yeah, Baltimore.
Baltimore just put it on him nineearned and then again it's good times bad
times with him. It was theAngels, albeit as part of a victory,
but he gave up four in thatone. What do you make as
kind of the up and down aspectsof how he's performed. You know,
he's got games. He bounced backfrom the nine runs to go six seven
(24:37):
scoreless with ten k's. He's gotten k's last night. Like, what
is it about Paddock's game? Maybeif this becomes more of the average,
what do we love about Chris Paddockbeing in this rotation? I mean,
he's working through a lot of stuffright Like a he's coming back, bouncing
back from Tommy John surgery. Likeas a result of that, you know,
a lot of guys their first yearback sort of struggle with their control.
(24:57):
The elbow is where the control is. That's when when you have Tommy
John surgery. That's the last thingto come back is the control. On
top of that, you know,he's always been a fastball, change up
pitcher, and he was trying toadd a pitch this time. He's trying
to add this sweeper or slider whateverit is that he can throw on a
regular basis to to supplement the youknow, two really good pitches. He's
(25:21):
had the change up in the fastballwell. As a result of that,
what we've seen is his change uphas been a little less consistent than we've
seen in the past. And Ithink that's been part of what has been
going on. I mean, Ithink in general, like, yes,
he gave up four runs at time. He also had a couple of short
outings early on. You know,overall, he's been a really good throw
(25:45):
you throw out the one enormous,enormously bad start, which frankly, he
was also kind of left in beyondthe point most starting pitchers would have been,
uh, left in to kind ofeat that they were had a beat
up bullpen, and so you're justgonna just like we're gonna add three or
four runs your e RA that wouldnot normally be you know, part of
(26:06):
your e RA. But you know, his strikeout rate has been really strong.
He's had really good control. Ithink he's got eight walks all year,
you know, uh, and whenyou can strike people out and you
don't put them on base, you'reusually and he hasn't seemed to really have
a home run issue or anything likethat, other than like that one.
Uh that one, real real badouting. So uh, I'm optimistic about
(26:27):
Patty. I mean, the questionreally is going to be how they're gonna
be careful about how much they usehim. Yeah, coming off of Tommy
John surgery, you don't want tolean into a guy too much. And
I think what they're going to tryand do is try to be conservative about
how much they use them. Iwouldn't be shocked if, you know,
he ends up having a couple ofstays on the I l you know,
(26:48):
just to sort of give him alittle break, or skips a spot,
skips a rotation spot or two sometimemid season, just to try and keep
him fresh, because I mean,he's got the up side of a you
know, number two starter yep.And you know, when you get to
the playoffs, that's what you're lookingfor. You're looking at somebody who could
be a playoff caliber starter. Hecan be that, but yeah, he
(27:10):
can also he can also have somerough outings. How tough is it sticking
with the pitching staff? And Iwas joking, you know, should I
get my Simian Woods richardson Suersey justbecause and it hasn't been beautiful at times.
You know, he's conceiding a bunchof hits. His things are getting
a little harry once in a whilewith him, but he's he's getting out
alive, right. And how difficultis it when you mentioned you know,
(27:32):
guys get out of bed like Paddockand they just toss it ninety eight and
it's becoming a speed game, rightand just flamethrowers left and right. Then
you got a guy that throws it. And maybe it's a similar conversation to
Kent to my ata. You knowhe's getting it was it was wow,
he's consistently hitting ninety two or ninetythree, right, And Simeon Woods Richardson,
I think is kind of in asimilar spot where it's he adds a
(27:55):
mile to it. Well, nowit's ninety two. You know, learning
how to pitch and win with thosetypes of pitches, placement game, all
of that. Is it just anaturally a tougher road for the Woods Richardson's
of the world. I mean withWoods Richardson, he was a top prospect
that was traded to the Twins fromthe Blue Jays for Jose Burrios. So
he'll be going back to his oldorganization. He and Austin more, we
(28:18):
get Jose this weekend. We didnot get Jose Barrios this weekend. He
pitched two days ago and got beatup, roughed up by the Fills.
He didn't farewell against the Twins lastyear. Either did well. No,
he did pretty well though in theplayoffs. They ended up pulling him early
after you know, one time throughthe lineup or something, and they man
caught hell for that. Yeah,Sami was. Richardson was a top prospect
(28:41):
who's velocity was gradually kind of decreasingwithin his time with the Twins organization,
which is unusual. Like they've gotsuccess story after success story after success story
of guys whose velocity have climbed.That's why Louis Varland is a prospect.
That's why Bailey ober is a prospectright or a successful pitcher. Richardson's had
(29:03):
been going down and down and underto the point where last year he got
knocked around in Triple A pretty muchand he was only averaging you know,
ninety miles an hour with his fastball. And this offseason he and the Twins
basically took a look and said wegot to go back to pitching sort of
your use your athleticism and quit tryingto part of the reason his fastball wasn't
(29:26):
going very fast as he was tryingto sort of deceive people as to when
the fastball was coming. He waschanging his arm slot to match the armslot
that he had with the various breakingpitches that he does or the various slower
pitches that he does, and asa result of that, he was losing
a couple miles per hour on thefastball. Well, they just amped that,
but let's go back to the oldway and make it a little more
rotational. And as a result ofthat, we saw in spring training day
(29:47):
one he was throwing ninety four milesper hour. Now that doesn't sound that
fast, right, but when you'vebeen pitching and surviving at eighty nine miles
per hour, I'll throw at ninetyfour miles per hour. Is a game
changer, right, absolute game changer. How excited you can get about him,
I mean I think he can getpretty excited about him. He was
a top prospect, and you knowthe fact that he had gone tumbled down
(30:07):
the prospect list after reviews. We'rekind of seeing what we expected from him.
Three or four years ago. He'salways been young for whatever minor league
level he's been in. He's alsoyou know, he's he's never had problems
with the secondary pitches, which otherpitchers generally, you know, usually it's
like, oh, he's got goodfastball, he's got a you know,
a good slider, but he needsto work in his change ever. So,
(30:30):
no, all those other pitches havebeen fine. The fastball was the
problem, and now the fastball isfixed, you know. As a result
of that, I think that theexpectation is maybe he'll be sort of a
mid rotation guy. I actually wouldgo higher than that. I feel like
he has a ceiling of a playoffcaliber starter now that we you know,
we'll we'll have to see him continuethis kind of success. But they've just
(30:51):
got a one point seven four eraright now. Bad Well, I mean,
you know, it's four or fivestarts, but you know that's worth
sticking around and finding out more.Absolutely, the only question I have left
for you, do you need fourfingers or five fingers to hold up when
it's wolves in four or five?How do we how do we feel?
(31:12):
I went into Game two thinking wewere going to see the best of the
Nuggets right that they'd kind of futzedaround through the Lakers series and you know,
we'd show you that. You know, Game one they didn't start out
very well, and they were goingto come out Game two and really try
and show that they were the champs. And then it went exactly the opposite
(31:33):
of that way. They got thrownout of their game early. And if
that was their best, well thenit's going before. I mean, it's
just a matter of how much theWolves want to play with their prey at
that point, you know, howmuch do they want to play with their
food? Uh? You know?Now, I would also say Denver has
(31:55):
had three days to hear not justlike their own fans and not just Wolves
fans, but the entire national mediawrite them off, right, And for
three days they've been thinking about that. So I think we're going to see
them come out on fire this game. Now. Unfortunately they got to do
it on the road. Yep,No, you know, that can still
(32:15):
happen, but I'm I'm hesitant thatthey can show a lot more than they
were able to show on Game two. So I'm going to say it four.
I'm going to say Monday morning,when we are doing the leam into
the Geek Patreon podcast, which isgoing to be an hour and a half
talk about Twins. It's going toend with a half hour of Wolves talk
(32:37):
as it did last week, wherewe are just going to be talking about
the sweep and now whether we'd ratherface Oklahoma City or Dallas. No.
I love it, I love it. Thank you, Johnny, thanks for
hanging out in studio man, Thanksfor the invitation. The birthday boy doesn't
look a day over fifty six.John Bonus at Twins Geek via Twitter and
then of course Twins Daily dot Comzone coverage all things Minnesota sports. John
(33:01):
is intimately acquainted with and covers itnicely, So thank you to John.
Final segment will kind of just unloadthe notebook on Wolves and Nuggets Game three
and send you on to the program. Final segment nine to noon is next
final segment nine to noon Wolves HeavyVibe from Chad Greenway opening the show Denver
(33:24):
Perspective with Scott Hastings and Troy Rinkfrom Altitude Sports and The Denver Post,
respectively. You just heard John Bonusand studio the Twins Geek. He's going
to be dawdling his way to targetCenter tonight as well. We're all over
the place. Max, you're atat the Target Center. I'll be at
Freehouse for a watch party for theentirety of the game. I'll get there
(33:46):
around eight PM, ton of fiftydollars Free House gift cards to give away
and just post up, have acouple of beers, and hopefully watch a
Game three victory for the home squadWolves and Nuggets at Target Center. Tonight
tip off shortly after more like whenmaybe closer to nine, who knows between
eight thirty and nine. Eventually we'regoing to get to watch some basketball pre
(34:07):
game eight o'clock. The pre tothe pre the party in the Cage starts
at seven with you. Max.Final thoughts on hopefully ringing up another w
tonight, Yeah, I'm I thinkthe Nuggets are either going to come out
two ways here. They're going tolook more of what we saw in Game
two, just defeated. Heart's rippedout of their chest. I don't know
if you ever played Mortal Kombat asa kid, but you know when that
(34:29):
when they're about to do the fatalityand they're just kind of wobblin. I
used to blood Code by Heart,right, I've forgotten it right before the
voice is finished, sumed like that'skind of the Nuggets are the wobbly guy
right now, and the Wolves canrip their heart out tonight with a three
to zero victory. But they're thechamps and I expect them to come out
with some fight. Let's not forgetthat. This team that made one,
not one, but two three toone comebacks in previous playoffs before with Nikola
(34:53):
Jokic. But I think it kindof all depends on how Jamal Murray is
going to show up tonight. WhenJokic is gonna get his He's going to
be the passer and score that weknow him to be, perhaps maybe even
more aggressive than we've seen him inthe first two games, as Troy was
talking about earlier. But I thinkI think it all kind of rides on
how good Jamal Murray can be,and I just I just don't see him
having a breakout game when you gotguys like Nikhil, Alexander Walker and Jade
(35:15):
McDaniels, who the Wolves fans havedubbed it gnaw and order earlier this week
because they got Tamom Murray locked up. Uh So I expect another Wolves win
and uh. And we're going tobe howling and partying on into the weekend.
So whether you're you're hanging out withMax, you're finding me at Free
House having a couple of beers,you're following the Bouncing Bonus around Minneapolis.
(35:37):
It's going to be fun. AndI'm with you as we put a rap
on Nine to Noon. It's it'sgot to be. It's got to be
the punch who survives it. AndI do think that Denver comes out here
on fire tonight, but what doesthat look like? We also have the
four time defensive Player of the Yearback in the midst New Dad, New
Reason to Fight, and he's goingto be He's going to be on the
(35:58):
court. I just can't wait forthis thing. Thank you so much to
everybody, not only for joining nineto Noon, but those for listening to
nine to Noon and Max sitting inmy chair today me and PA's chair.
You being a Wolves loving roube andlistening the program is next. Everybody have
an awesome afternoon podcast. Today's PaulAllen Joe. We're listening back to previous
(36:49):
show and interviews like going to theiHeartRadio app for GFVN dot com.
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