Thread: Article: Changing Focus: The Danny Valencia & Francisco Liriano Moves

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?53...-Liriano-Moves

Matt Maloney was the odd man out with another lefty moving to the bullpen. That's unlucky for him.

"Unlucky"? He was flat-out terrible, which is exactly what his track record foretold. He never should have been on the team in the first place, regardless of his spring training statistics.

For a guy as cocky as Valencia, this is a great wake-up call. If he can adjust his approach to the point where he's not getting himself out all the time, he could be useful again (to somebody), at least as the short half of a platoon. I'm also interested to see whether Plouffe can handle 3B better than SS.

I see your point on Liriano. But I still think they should have thrown him in the car with the cougar.

As long as we're adding marginal pitchers in their late 20's to the roster, when's it going to be Slama's turn?

I have a feeling this year the twins are going to continually shift players from the bigs to the minors. This is what happens when the top levels of your organizatin are filled with nothing but replacement level or below replacemnt level players. These are all interchangeable parts.

About time for Valencia to be demoted. This guy thinks he is much better than anyone else. He is the only player that I have ever met that refused to sign his rookie card.

I love the Valencia move. He thinks he is great. The other night during the "Pick the Sticks" bit that the FSN crew does pre-game, Valencia walked up to the camera and asked one of the commentators (Roy, maybe) why he wasn't getting any love. Joke or not, there are a lot of irritated fans out there. Danny needs to hit the ball before he jokes on camera about how good he thinks he is.

This should serve as a little wake-up call for everybody else on the team as well not named Joe, Josh, or Justin.

I was excited at the start of the year when I looked at the lineup--on base guys, power guys, speed guys. The lineup last night made me wince. Do you think Plouffe will get an extended look at 3B? Or RF? Can they bring up Bates and get Parmalee to AAA where he needs to be?

These are the bold(er) roster moves that I feel Bill Smith never had the cojones to do. The sooner this organization embraces a rebuilding season, the better. Every ounce of value that can be had by trading Span, Pavano, and maybe even Liriano (if he pitches well in the bullpen), must be milked out of 2012. I don't think you can necessarily go after other teams' blue chip prospects with those pieces, but someone like Span (especially with a team friendly contract) should at least fetch a higher-ceiling pitching prospect. 2001's marketing campaign was "Get to Know 'Em;" 2012's unofficial campaign will be "Say Your Goodbyes." I will definitely miss Span, but like Hunter, he'll still be easy to root for in other colors, especially since the Nationals are in the NL.

Clearly Valencia has the talent and confidence to succeed in the big leagues. This step backwards is likely/hopefully the thing that can help him figure things out again.

Consider this as well... if Valencia spent the whole season with the Twins, he would most likely be a Super 2 and make a bunch of money next year. If he goes down for a month (maybe 5 weeks), something clicks and he turns the career around, the Twins get an extra year of time at near-league minimum.

Did you guys catch Valencia's quote where he said his defense has been great, just his hitting has been lacking?

John, who's the everyday 3b now? Or is it a mixture of Casilla, Plouffe, and Carrol?

Originally Posted by Seth Stohs

Clearly Valencia has the talent and confidence to succeed in the big leagues. This step backwards is likely/hopefully the thing that can help him figure things out again.

Consider this as well... if Valencia spent the whole season with the Twins, he would most likely be a Super 2 and make a bunch of money next year. If he goes down for a month (maybe 5 weeks), something clicks and he turns the career around, the Twins get an extra year of time at near-league minimum.

Seth, I don't think it is at all clear that he has the talent to succeed in the big leagues. He is a career.235/.274/.357 hitter against right handers. That's not exactly good from a corner infielder. Add to that the evidence that suggests that he is, at best, a below average fielder and I think he's a marginal big leaguer with one good skill -- he mashes lefties.

Originally Posted by Seth Stohs

Clearly Valencia has the talent and confidence to succeed in the big leagues. This step backwards is likely/hopefully the thing that can help him figure things out again.

Consider this as well... if Valencia spent the whole season with the Twins, he would most likely be a Super 2 and make a bunch of money next year. If he goes down for a month (maybe 5 weeks), something clicks and he turns the career around, the Twins get an extra year of time at near-league minimum.

Or which ever team he gets traded to. If this move helps his trade value at the deadline it was a great decision. If a callup coincides with his yearly July surge the team might get some value back for him.

Originally Posted by nokomismod

Did you guys catch Valencia's quote where he said his defense has been great, just his hitting has been lacking?

The broadcast crew noted during the game (when they obviously had no idea he'd be sent down afterwards) that his defense had been significantly better in the past three weeks. I'm not sure I agree with that sentiment, as his range leaves something to be desired even if he isn't making errors, but take it for what it's worth.

What people need to understand about Valencia and this move is that Valencia is not a "prospect". He's 9 days older than Ryan Zimmerman. It just doesn't feel that way because Zimmerman was up in the majors in 2006 playing a full season and posting better numbers at Age 21 than Valencia ever will. However, in terms of their development arc, Zimmerman and Valencia are at roughly the same place. Valencia is what he is. He was never was really supposed to be a 10-year solution at 3rd base...he was only thrust into that role because Joe Crede didn't work out the year before, and the only other options were guys like Harris and Punto.

Did anybody else catch Valencia with Robby Incmikowski (sp?) in the pregame on Monday? Robby was razzing him about why they had picked Mauer instead of him for Pick the Stick, and instead of just rolling with it, Valencia something to the effect of "Whatever, you would jump on Joe Mauer if you had the chance". I didn't see if anyone else noticed it on Twitter or the boards, but this is just yet another example of this guy's immaturity, and you can imagine there are much worse cringe-inducing moments behind closed doors. Those would be excused if he was a serviceable big leaguer, but unfortunately, he isn't.

Originally Posted by Nick Nelson

"Unlucky"? He was flat-out terrible, which is exactly what his track record foretold. He never should have been on the team in the first place, regardless of his spring training statistics.

By unlucky, I was referring to Liriano being left-handed. If he was right-handed, I think someone else would have gone.

Originally Posted by nokomismod

John, who's the everyday 3b now? Or is it a mixture of Casilla, Plouffe, and Carrol?

Exactly right. I have a feeling it will be mostly Carroll with Casilla at 2B.

Originally Posted by StormJH1

What people need to understand about Valencia and this move is that Valencia is not a "prospect". He's 9 days older than Ryan Zimmerman. It just doesn't feel that way because Zimmerman was up in the majors in 2006 playing a full season and posting better numbers at Age 21 than Valencia ever will.

I'm not sure I totally understand what this means. If the point is that Valencia's ceiling is pretty low, I agree. But I still think Valencia could have a Coomerific career in the majors. And I always cut a little slack to 3B for their age. For some reason, a lot of them make it to the bigs a bit later.

One other point I should have made in the story: right about now it might be nice to have Luke Hughes in the organization.

Originally Posted by Seth Stohs

Clearly Valencia has the talent and confidence to succeed in the big leagues. This step backwards is likely/hopefully the thing that can help him figure things out again.

Consider this as well... if Valencia spent the whole season with the Twins, he would most likely be a Super 2 and make a bunch of money next year. If he goes down for a month (maybe 5 weeks), something clicks and he turns the career around, the Twins get an extra year of time at near-league minimum.

Come on Seth. He was never a top flight prospect to begin with, so we shouldn't be surprised by his struggles. The guys has no range and does only 1 thing well....hit left handed pitching. He's not a Major League starting third baseman.


He was overhyped from the start, just like Parmelee, Revere, Hendricks, etc....Hopefully Dozier breaks the mold and outperforms.

So when Morneau comes off the DL, and is able to play 1B will Parmalee get the regular 3B job? To me, it makes the most sense.*

Originally Posted by Gernzy

Exactly right. I have a feeling it will be mostly Carroll with Casilla at 2B.

I suspect the same. Carroll, mostly. Some Plouffe.