Time to Send Parmelee Down

[Otto von Ballpark]

That doesn't mean it counts for less. That's the problem with using SSS in the first place. Lots of fluctuation up and down.

 

The entire point of playing Parmelee is to find out if he can hit MLB pitching. Over the past 55 days, he has done an adequate job of just that, posting a .770-ish OPS.

 

Of course Parmelee's performance Saturday counts. But his recent good hitting is nowhere near a trend yet -- it's almost literally one game. And your 55 day sample is more of the same -- before Saturday, he was OPSing ~.670 over his previous 55 days. Did that trend do a complete reversal in one day?

 

Now, if he is indeed a true .770 OPS hitter, that's great. Just don't try to prove that to me when he posts a .770 over a small sample that conveniently concludes with a 2 HR game. Right now, he looks more like a .700 OPS hitter (.687 MLB OPS over 2012-2013), who can occasionally post a .750 over a month or so. He's got some work to do to convince me otherwise -- not necessarily a repeat of September 2011, but an .800+ OPS stretch would be nice.

 

Neither Doumit nor Willingham factor into the Twins next contending team.

You sure about that? Both are signed at reasonable prices for 2014, and as much as the Twins are rebuilding, I'm pretty sure they don't want to punt 2014.

 

And why do the Twins have to find out about Parmelee right now? According to Baseball-Reference, he won't even be arbitration-eligible until after 2015. In fact, given their salaries and contracts, it might be more prudent for the Twins to use 2013 to determine if Willingham and Doumit are cooked or too injury-prone. Same with Morneau, if there's a chance we could re-sign him at a reasonable rate for 2014. (Willingham and Doumit could likewise be signed cheaply past 2014 if they rebound from their sluggish starts this year.)

[Riverbrian]

I'm done quibbling after this. The bottom line is that I don't share this board's excitement about punting major league at bats for long shot causes. Unlike 2B or 3B, there are at least 3 or 4 better options available in RF or 1B/DH on the 40 man. I'd be arguing the same about Plouffe if he was taking time from a Korey Koskie or established and productive veteran, but he's not.

 

Hammer... It's ok... No need for frustration. I've been there before.

 

At some point you realize that its like Will Ferrell running down the street in "Old School".

 

Keep your conviction. Its yours... It's been an interesting discussion.

 

I would just like to point out that nobody on either side of the fence knows what Parm is gonna become. Even Parm doesn't know and neither do the Twins Brass.

[Otto von Ballpark]

What are your thoughts on 2012 Trevor Plouffe? Because his career arc before June of 2012 was almost identical to Parmelee (well, except that Chris was a much better hitter).

 

Not directed at me, but I will answer: the 2012 Twins had absolutely NO ONE to play third base for next 2-3 years. (And we were looking at similar dearths in the middle infield, where Plouffe could have presumably still been an option.) When your other options at a position are 2012 Danny Valencia and a 38-year-old Jamey Carroll, yeah, plug in whoever you want and hope for something better. The 2013 Twins do not appear to have a similar lack of corner OF/1B/DH options, particularly if you don't think Willingham and Doumit's careers are cooked (in fact, depending on how you view his 3B defense, Plouffe might be one of those options, in addition to usual suspects).

 

I have nothing against Parmelee. Personally, I'd put Doumit into more of a traditional backup catcher role right now and let Parmelee play everyday. But Chris hasn't shown much to earn that yet, so I'm not too worked up about him continuing to see bench time.

[cmathewson]

I don't think Parm is a long-shot. Will he be a star? Probably not. But power-hitting left-handed bats who can play multiple positions are actually sought after commodities. If you can develop one in house, all the better. He has learned everything he will learn in AAA. Now he needs a season of the majors to know what we have.

 

What I've seen is encouraging, despite the numbers. He has a good eye at the plate. He hits the ball hard a lot. He plays good defense at two positions. I don't know why you would send him down. At the very least, he's a valuable bench bat.

[Otto von Ballpark]

His minor league career should give no one any reason to think he cannot be at a minimum an .800 OPS hitter in the majors, and quite possibly much more,

 

I think you may want to check the record again: Parmelee never OPSed higher than .800 in any full minor league season. He would have been very fortunate to become an .800 MLB OPS guy based on his record prior to September 2011.

 

Just to clarify: I don't advocate sending Parmelee down, in fact I'd start him over Doumit. I'm just not worked up about his playing time so far, given his MLB performances to date. Hopefully this past weekend was a sign of things clicking for him, like Plouffe last year -- still wishful thinking rather than a trend, though.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I think you may want to check the record again: Parmelee never OPSed higher than .800 in any full minor league season. He would have been very fortunate to become an .800 MLB OPS guy based on his record prior to September 2011.

 

But to be fair, his career MiLB OPS is .820. He would struggle at a level, then break through and earn a promotion (as is often the case). He had plenty of stints over .800 in the minors.

 

I'm not too riled up about Parmelee either way and I think we're mostly of the same opinion but I'd like to see him get a fair amount of reps to know for sure. Given the way this season is shaking out, I skew toward letting the younger guys play.

 

But to say that Parmelee is done or that he has no chance of succeeding in MLB... That's just utterly ridiculous.

[nicksaviking]

Parmelee has a career MiLB OPS of .820. That's not exactly a "long-shot" to succeed in MLB. That's "middle of the road prospect" territory. The kind of guy you give a legitimate shot before kicking to the curb.

 

Not to mention that while Permelee's less than acceptable 2013 MLB OPS is .703 it's not exactly being dwarfed by Doumit's .718 or Willingham's .751 nor Morneau's .725 for that matter. Numbers that unexciting and uninspiring should probably encourage the team to give more playing time to the youngest guy, who also happens to be under contract the longest.

[Otto von Ballpark]

But to be fair, his career MiLB OPS is .820. He would struggle at a level, then break through and earn a promotion (as is often the case). He had plenty of stints over .800 in the minors.

45 games in rookie ball, he posted a .901, repeating low-A for 62 games in 2008, he posted an .881, and repeating high-A for 22 games in 2010, he posted an .893 (most of it in batting average, not slugging). Repeating AA he only hit .801. Prior to 2012, he only had a .791 career MiLB OPS -- not terribly promising for a 24 year old 1B/RF who had yet to play in AAA.

 

But damn, his 2012 AAA season is very intriguing. Basically, his best professional performance ever, by far, and he was only 24 and not repeating the level. Think if Colabello was mashing like he is now, but he was five years younger! Parmelee may have single-handedly earned Brunansky his promotion to major league hitting coach last year (his more modest 2011 improvement at AA also coincided with the hiring of Brunansky).

 

But to say that Parmelee is done or that he has no chance of succeeding in MLB... That's just utterly ridiculous.

 

Agreed.

[kab21]

I would actually like Parmelee to play everyday right now but imo you start doumit/Willingham/Morneau almost all of the time trying to build up their trade value before the deadline. There's only one other place for Parmelee to play and Arcia is a must start. That's why Parmelee's best spot is in the minors getting regular AB's for a month. Hopefully the Twins are able to trade one of the veterans and parmelee comes back up to start for the final 2 months.

[twinsnorth49]

Hammer... It's ok... No need for frustration. I've been there before.

 

At some point you realize that its like Will Ferrell running down the street in "Old School".

 

Keep your conviction. Its yours... It's been an interesting discussion.

 

I would just like to point out that nobody on either side of the fence knows what Parm is gonna become. Even Parm doesn't know and neither do the Twins Brass.

 

Which is why we should spend the rest of this year finding out.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Update: Parmelee's June OPS finished at .719. He started 4 of 6 games after his big weekend in Cleveland, including 3 of the 4 we played with the DH rule -- basically maintaining his 480 PA season pace.

 

Again, I am not arguing that Parm needs to be sent down -- I think THAT would constitute "jerking him around". I am just noting that he has yet to establish a trend of anything close to .800 OPS performance.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Update: Parmelee's June OPS finished at .719. He started 4 of 6 games after his big weekend in Cleveland, including 3 of the 4 we played with the DH rule -- basically maintaining his 480 PA season pace.

 

Again, I am not arguing that Parm needs to be sent down -- I think THAT would constitute "jerking him around". I am just noting that he has yet to establish a trend of anything close to .800 OPS performance.

 

I'd argue that he doesn't need an .800 OPS to be a stopgap at first base. At this point, I'd settle for a .750 OPS making the league minimum.

 

I don't think anyone here expects Parmelee to be the answer at first over the next 3-4 seasons but if he can hold down the position for 1-2 seasons while we wait for Vargas/Sano/whatever, I'd be happy with that.

[jay]

I'd argue that he doesn't need an .800 OPS to be a stopgap at first base. At this point, I'd settle for a .750 OPS making the league minimum.

 

MLB average at 1B is only .764, so I'd have to agree with Brock. I expected it to be higher than that before looking it up.

 

With the number of strong contributors we project to have in other spots, there's nothing wrong with league average-ish. I certainly think Parm can be that guy.

[TheLeviathan]

Since when is a 750 OPS a bad thing? It's great to want more but his production has been fine. I expect with his LD rate and BABIP, that we will see improvement going forward too.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I'd just like to see him play every day for several months to see what he's capable of doing.

[Otto von Ballpark]

.750 OPS would be great, but...

 

Parmelee's been nowhere near a .750 OPS overall guy. A "True" .750 OPS hitter is going to occasionally top that over a month or similar sample of games. Right now, post September 2011, Parm's been a monthly PEAK .750 OPS guy at the MLB level. He's sub-.700 overall since then. True, it hasn't been a ton of PA, but his last 440 MLB PA he's posted a ~.680 OPS. And his stats haven't noticeably improved from last year's sporadic at-bats to this year's fairly regular MLB starts (480 PA season pace).

 

Given the current roster and standings, it doesn't hurt to keep playing him right now, but he's really not showing any evidence of being that .750+ OPS guy that so many of us are penciling him into. I'm curious if people are seeing something beyond the numbers, because the numbers don't look good right now for Chris.

[Otto von Ballpark]

I'd just like to see him play every day for several months to see what he's capable of doing.

So if he finishes the year with 480 PA and a .700-ish OPS, you're going to say, "I'm pretty sure he could have posted a .750 with an extra hundred PA"?

 

Parmelee was indeed jerked around in early 2012, when he mostly sat on the MLB bench, but to be fair, he hadn't yet destroyed AAA pitching then -- heck, he hadn't faced AAA pitching at all. He probably profiled more as a Mike Ryan, short-term pinch-hit specialist at that point.

 

He was up and down a bit while he started crushing AAA, but since he came back in August of last year, he's pretty much been a regular. 107 games with the team since then (I left out his 4 game paternity leave) and he's started 74, with the following numbers:

 

74 GS

319 PA

14 2B

10 HR

27 BB

75 SO

.238/.307/.399

.706 OPS

 

That's not unreasonable playing time for a corner guy with his track record and current performance level. For those that like the Plouffe late bloomer comparison, Trevor started only 75 of the 129 team games from his last recall in 2011 until his breakout started in mid-May 2012. And here was his line:

 

75 GS

322 PA

18 2B

6 HR

30 BB

71 SO

.224/.300/.357

.657 OPS

[Guest USAFChief]

I, for one, will be pretty disappointed if all the Twins expect from their first baseman is a .750 OPS.

 

Also, unless I'm misreading baseball ref, AL first basemen are not averaging .750.

[Riverbrian]

Parmelee... With my eyes... He appears to struggle catching up to the MLB high fastball.

 

If I can see that... I'm sure the Twins can see that and it has probably cost him some playing time.

 

Based on stats he must have been able to handle the AAA fastball. If he starts to catch up to the MLB Variety... Things could change!!! Give him a chance to work on it is my thought.

[BabyJesusBuxton]

I've often heard that baseball scouts/GMs don't like to cement a players value until after 1000 AB. Parmelee is currently at 470 ML AB. If he can get regular at bats, then by the trade deadline next season I think we should have a clearer picture of what we can expect out of him moving forward.

 

One thing I think the majority (perhaps 65-70% based on my observation) of the people posting here agree on is that sending him back to AAA (which was the original question in this post) will not answer any questions about him. He needs to prove his value at the ML level with ML ABs.

If the Twins are not able to trade anyone out of Hammer, Doumit, or Morneau at the deadline, I think that is the point where Doumit/Willingham/Morneau should start losing at bats to Parmelee regardless of performance. At this point in the season the Wild Card picture should be a little clearer and I am expecting the Twins to be just outside of the WC race so player development should be priority at that point.

 

One final thought is that Gardy's job with the Twins shouldn't affect the long-term development of the team although it will likely prevent my playing time scenario laid out above from actually happening.

[stringer bell]

Parmelee's stats stack up with Doumit and Morneau after his nice game tonight against the Yankees. He's got an OPS of .718, Doumit is .702 and Morneau is .749, Willingham is .754. While he may never be a star, he is on the right side of 30, he is versatile and cheap. Let him play almost every day or send him down.

[fairweather]

There will be plenty of playing time and AB's for Parmalee after Morneau and/or Willingham is traded. I think Parmalee has a bright future. I might be the only one but I stand by it.

[diehardtwinsfan]

There will be plenty of playing time and AB's for Parmalee after Morneau and/or Willingham is traded. I think Parmalee has a bright future. I might be the only one but I stand by it.

 

You aren't the only one, though I think each passing season where he finds himself playing half time and pinch hitting is not helping that future. The kid needs to play, and in a lost season, he should be doing that every day.

[Guest USAFChief]

You aren't the only one, though I think each passing season where he finds himself playing half time and pinch hitting is not helping that future. The kid needs to play, and in a lost season, he should be doing that every day.

He has the 3rd most games played on the team, 6th most PAs. He needs to play? I think he has played.

 

He needs to hit, is what he needs.

[Brock Beauchamp]

He has the 3rd most games played on the team, 6th most PAs. He needs to play? I think he has played.

 

He needs to hit, is what he needs.

 

.833 OPS over the past month of play.

 

This team has nothing to lose by playing Chris every day. Get him out there. His peripheral stats are pretty good. He's walking 10% of the time, which shows good discipline. His LD rate is over 22%, which means he's taking good hacks at the ball. His BABIP is around .270, which means he's on the unluckier side of things.

 

There is a lot to indicate that he will become a solid role player on the team. Given the pathetic play of the veterans and the fact that the Twins are not competitive this season, I'm still waiting to hear a good reason why Parmelee shouldn't be playing.

[diehardtwinsfan]

He has the 3rd most games played on the team, 6th most PAs. He needs to play? I think he has played.

 

He needs to hit, is what he needs.

 

Showing up as a pinch hitter b/c Gardy kept him on the bench for most of the game is part of the reasons why his games played is high. My point is that he should be starting and playing every day, not sitting the bench half the time and coming in for one key at bat.... not yet at least.

[071063]

I fall on the "Parmalee needs to play at the MLB level every day" side of this arguement. I am a huge Morneau fan, but we need to explore trading him, Doumit and Willingham. At least 2 of the three need to be gone after this years trade deadline. And then Parmalee needs to play every day.

[Boone]

Since May 23, Parmelee is hitting .281/.379/.528 for a .907 OPS. Especially when you consider that he's just 25, that certainly merits continued playing time, every day.

 

Parmelee isn't the long-term answer at 1B. That falls to someone out of Sano, Harrison, and Vargas. But he can certainly be a stop-gap player for a few more years, or flipped at the trade deadline for decent value.

[Otto von Ballpark]

.833 OPS over the past month of play.

 

C'mon Brock, you gotta quit quoting a player's OPS over a small sample immediately after the player has a good game. Before yesterday, Parmelee's OPS over the last month of play was .721. Of course Monday's game counts as much as any other, but there is still not much of a trend that indicates Parmelee is a .750 hitter, or an .800 hitter, much less an .833 hitter.

 

No one doubts that Parmelee can occasionally have big games at the plate like Monday, or like he did in Cleveland. But he needs to do those with greater frequency. He's got his season OPS over .700 for the first time since April 13, so that's good. Maybe he's on a slow climb up to .750?

[Brock Beauchamp]

C'mon Brock, you gotta quit quoting a player's OPS over a small sample immediately after the player has a good game.

 

I'll stop doing that when people stop saying "he needs to start hitting". I'm not randomly posting Chris' OPS every time he has a good game. I'm responding to people who believe that he's not hitting (and therefore deserves less playing time), despite the fact that his OPS is above Doumit's, on par with Willingham's, and not that far behind Morneau's.

 

Before yesterday, Parmelee's OPS over the last month of play was .721. Of course Monday's game counts as much as any other, but there is still not much of a trend that indicates Parmelee is a .750 hitter, or an .800 hitter, much less an .833 hitter.

 

Nowhere in this thread have I indicated that Parmelee is an .833 hitter. In fact, the only "predictions" I've made regarding Parmelee involve words like "stop-gap", ".750 OPS", and "role player".

 

No one doubts that Parmelee can occasionally have big games at the plate like Monday, or like he did in Cleveland. But he needs to do those with greater frequency. He's got his season OPS over .700 for the first time since April 13, so that's good. Maybe he's on a slow climb up to .750?

 

And my only point is that he needs to play every day, in the same spot in the lineup, for a month so we know for sure.