Spring Training Games, Week of 3/9 - 3/15

[Brock Beauchamp]

[thelanges5]

 

[Doctor Gast]

Just tuned in go Twins! Go SWR!

[RpR]

29 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

Just tuned in go Twins! Go SWR!

Did you see Julien's glove work?

[USAFChief]

I SO want to like Julien. 

But he makes it SO hard. 

[thelanges5]

The pride of Forest Lake!

 

[Doctor Gast]

12 minutes ago, RpR said:

Did you see Julien's glove work?

No. I don't have Twins TV. Why? Nature called, I guess I missed it.

[tony&rodney]

There are people who suggest anyone can play first base. Well, maybe not. How many times has Julien practiced that pivot and throw from first base? 200? I'm wondering what the Twins are doing with Julien. In today's game he is at first while Gasper is at second base. If the Twins ever use Gasper at second ahead of Vazquez during the regular season, questions need to be asked.

Perhaps it would be best if the Twins made a permanent decision on Julien. Another team should be an option because at this point it just looks like they are effing Eddy around.

[thelanges5]

[ashbury]

11 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

I SO want to like Julien. 

But he makes it SO hard. 

Gonna stick my neck out and say he's punched his ticket on the Green Line to St. Paul, with more than two weeks to spare.

[ashbury]

5 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Gonna stick my neck out and say he's punched his ticket on the Green Line to St. Paul, with more than two weeks to spare.

Sigh.  And then Julien goes and homers, mere minutes later, just to mess with me.

[Linus]

2 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Gonna stick my neck out and say he's punched his ticket on the Green Line to St. Paul, with more than two weeks to spare.

I think he looks better at the place this spring for whatever that is worth.  Unfortunately he is pretty much a DH if you care at all about defense.

[thelanges5]

 

[RpR]

3 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Sigh.  And then Julien goes and homers, mere minutes later, just to mess with me.

When all else fails, hit a home run.

[USAFChief]

16 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

There are people who suggest anyone can play first base. Well, maybe not. How many times has Julien practiced that pivot and throw from first base? 200? I'm wondering what the Twins are doing with Julien. In today's game he is at first while Gasper is at second base. If the Twins ever use Gasper at second ahead of Vazquez during the regular season, questions need to be asked.

Perhaps it would be best if the Twins made a permanent decision on Julien. Another team should be an option because at this point it just looks like they are effing Eddy around.

"Anybody can play anywhere." It's a Twins core value.

[ashbury]

2 minutes ago, RpR said:

When all else fails, hit a home run.

He did it on purpose.  I'm convinced of that.  He went up to the plate and tried to do well, the jerk.

[tony&rodney]

8 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

"Anybody can play anywhere." It's a Twins core value.

Sadly this careless approach/ neglect to turning outs into base-runners remains my only concern with the Twins and it extends well beyond EJ.

[thelanges5]

 

[ashbury]

18 minutes ago, thelanges5 said:

 

Apparently you CAN option someone when they're injured?

[FlyingFinn]

2 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

If the Twins ever use Gasper at second ahead of Vazquez during the regular season, questions need to be asked.

Somehow, I don't think you meant Vazquez :)

[tony&rodney]

21 minutes ago, FlyingFinn said:

Somehow, I don't think you meant Vazquez :)

Gasper = Vazquez as an infielder. Gasper has been hitting well. Does this mean he is an infielder? The Twins choices for gloves, aside from Correa, are a bit scary. It is best to listen to the games because then you will learn that every batted ball is a line drive base hit. Pity the pitchers.

[stringer bell]

42 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Apparently you CAN option someone when they're injured?

That is an obvious yes. Can they DFA him or put him on the 60-day IL if he's on minor league assignment and injured? I wonder if this is where injury settlements come in. 

[Schmoeman5]

2 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

Sadly this careless approach/ neglect to turning outs into base-runners remains my only concern with the Twins and it extends well beyond EJ.

Who else worries you? Its not so much the gloves. It's more like pivots, range, and throws that has me most concerned. And it's an ongoing theme tied into the multiple ways that Rocco deploys his lineups. I keep hearing how Twins pitchers are flyball pitchers. But I'd love to see some data regarding double-play opportunities that weren't turned. Not to mention I've observed quite a few balls that were scooped up by Santana last year that won't be scooped this year. There were 2 or 3 the other day against TB. 

[stringer bell]

Just now, tony&rodney said:

Gasper = Vazquez as an infielder. Gasper has been hitting well. Does this mean he is an infielder? The Twins choices for gloves, aside from Correa, are a bit scary. It is best to listen to the games because then you will learn that every batted ball is a line drive base hit. Pity the pitchers.

You know this because? I don't know if any of us had a scouting report on Mickey Gasper until the Twins acquired him. We do know that the Red Sox played him at second base last year in six of the eight games he played a position. I believe he played more first base and a bit more catcher in the minors, but for all we know it is because of the guys the Yankees and Red Sox had playing with him. 

Frankly, any guy who has catcher and first base as his primary positions isn't likely to be a good glove man at second, but getting Gasper innings to see if his glove is acceptable at second base makes sense to me. Also, since he was paired with Julien, Edouard would get some innings at first maybe to work on plays he botched today. 

[Linus]

54 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

That is an obvious yes. Can they DFA him or put him on the 60-day IL if he's on minor league assignment and injured? I wonder if this is where injury settlements come in. 

I’m confused.  They tried to option Kiriloff and he forced them to put him on the IL.

[RpR]

[DocBauer]

5 hours ago, ashbury said:

He did it on purpose.  I'm convinced of that.  He went up to the plate and tried to do well, the jerk.

It sounds very personal, Ash. Maybe you should keep banging on him. 😁

[DocBauer]

5 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

There are people who suggest anyone can play first base. Well, maybe not. How many times has Julien practiced that pivot and throw from first base? 200? I'm wondering what the Twins are doing with Julien. In today's game he is at first while Gasper is at second base. If the Twins ever use Gasper at second ahead of Vazquez during the regular season, questions need to be asked.

Perhaps it would be best if the Twins made a permanent decision on Julien. Another team should be an option because at this point it just looks like they are effing Eddy around.

You have to remember, this is SPRING TRAINING. When they put Gasper at 2B and Julien at 1B, it's because they are trying to see how each responds at those positions in games that DON'T MATTER.

That's all they are doing. IF Gasper makes the roster, or comes up at some point, CAN he ACTUALLY PLAY 2B at a reasonable level late in a game, or extra innings, when the lineup is re-set.

Julien is NOT an OF, a 3B or a SS. He's a 2B and DH BAT FIRST player who might have the ability to play some 1B to increase roster flexibility. Sure, he's played a LITTLE 1B here and there, but now it's time to get serious. Between workouts and game experience, can he play some 1B?

I'm NOT saying this to be sparky, but a lot of fans haven't been able to watch games the past couple of years. I'm fortunate enough to be out of the blackout zone so I've been able to watch every game. In 2023, Julien went from a poor 2B to an average defensive 2B as the year went along. Unfortunately, when his bat tanked in 2024, so did his defense. (Head games). 

What both frustrates and amuses me is when Luis Arraez debuted in 2019, he played 2B, LF...a spot he'd never played as a professional and was told to touch the wall and then take a certain number of steps in...as well as 17 games at 3B, and even 8 game appearances at SS! But he HIT so nobody cared. He played 2B in the short season of 2020. And he continued to HIT. In 2021 he continued to play 2B, and 3B, and LF. But he continued to HIT. In 2022 he continued to play some 2B, but was moved to 1B. And he again continued to HIT. 

Arraez has ALWAYS been a HITTER first and foremost. And when he was doing do, nobody really cared a lot about his barely adequate defense. 

So Julien has HIT EVERWHERE from college to his MILB pro career. In 2023 many were complaining how he could possibly be sent down, before being brought back up and becoming part of a team wide SURGE for the 2nd half of 2023.

And THEN....Julien had an awful 2024, despite a solid first month. And suddenly, he's a bum, he can't play defense, he should be in AAA to prove himself and earn his way back up.

I'm absolutely NOT picking on you @tony&rodney. I'm just using this opportunity to lay out some very confusing and bizarre opinions that I can't wrap my head around.

Arraez was/is a tremendous HITTER with questionable defense wherever you play him. (And I'm a FAN of Arraez). But Julien is maybe even better, overall, as an offensive player, with similar questionable defense, who was a STUD in 2023. But after a bad 2024, he's suddenly a dismissed player who is dismissed be so many because he had a bad 2024 and isn't great at any one spot. 

This just makes ZERO sense to me.

[mnfireman]

6 hours ago, ashbury said:

Sigh.  And then Julien goes and homers, mere minutes later, just to mess with me.

He was also called out on strikes twice, that still concerns me even if it is spring training

[DocBauer]

6 hours ago, USAFChief said:

"Anybody can play anywhere." It's a Twins core value.

With all due respect Chief, roster flexibility isn't exactly new, it's just different today as the game has changed/advanced.

If we want to look WAY BACK in Twins history, we see Versalles playing all around the dirt and grass. Killebrew played the same, but was never great defensively anywhere. (No disrespect). Rod Carew moved to 1B. Concerning the 2 Twins WS teams, Smalley was a SS,3b,DH. Randy Bush was a DH/1B/OF. Larkin was the same. All Newman played WHEREVER they placed him. Leius played 3B and SS. 

The IDEA of having "position less" players is NOT new. It's just a new way to name the way a roster is built. 

Now we can debate about putting players in the right spot for their best position as a STARTER. That means CATCHER and Buxton in CF, Correa at SS, etc. But with a limited roster of 26, used to be 25, was 24 for a few years, you have ALWAYS been limited to how many position players you could keep. SOMEONE always has had the ability to play multiple positions. That's never changed. 

BUT, the ability to build a roster where more than 1 or 2 or more players could play multiple positions HAS changed.