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jkcarew

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Everything posted by jkcarew

  1. jkcarew
    Now 7-0 against KC, DET, and BAL. 5-7 against rest of schedule. On to Houston.
  2. jkcarew
    Let's hope not. As 'horrible' as Sano's performance has been...or I should probably say, the perception of his performance...I don't think many of us are quite ready to have the 26 year-old Sano sit 70% of the games to platoon his career .802 OPS against right-handed pitching for 30 year-old Gonzalez's .737 against right-handed pitching.
  3. jkcarew
    Smoak is a switch-hitter, but the point is still valid...you'd rather turn Smoak around and have him hit from the right side. The problem is, Baldelli has one lefty he trusts. It's easy to say use Rogers there, but it's hard to pull that trigger when that leaves 3 innings in a close game with only Mejia available. At that part either call you make is probably wrong. They need a good LOOGY probably more than they need anything. I expect to see Moya as soon as he's available. Not that he's been great (yet) in that role. It's another indicator of how the FO had Molitor hand-cuffed in the bullpen..and now we're seeing Baldelli having to deal with it.
  4. jkcarew
    Reading my post..it was criptic. What I was trying to say.... Swinging earlier in the count reduces K-rate,...over time, you are less likely to strike out if you are hacking early. And I think the Twins have deliberately taken the approach to do that. (Albeit, probably for more reasons than to reduce K rate.) Currently the Twins have the 4th LOWEST K% in all of baseball....while seeing the fewest pitches per PA. It's early, but still not what I expected heading into the season.
  5. jkcarew
    Agree that 'hiding' the bullpen is about to get much harder...irregardless of level of competition. Offensively, you can tell there's an obvious intent to be more aggressive and swing earlier in counts this year. Twins are dead last in baseball in pitches per PA. Swinging before you have two strikes has helped the K%, and hurt the BB%...as you would expect. (Still have a relatively high team swinging strike rate.) This hasn't hurt overall production so far thanks to extra-base hits and a pretty high (unsustainable?) team BABiP of 320. We'll see...but it does seem funner to watch. At least as long as the results remain favorable .
  6. jkcarew
    Get it. But nobody else on the staff gave up a home run for every out they recorded...or even close. Then there were the HBP's/WP's. Wind or no wind...wasn't an outing that screamed "ready to come up any day now".
  7. jkcarew
    Agreed on the need to take the stats with a grain of salt going forward for a while. But, lest anyone think that Romero was anything but really bad in this appearance: he gave up one-third of the home run total, and retired 3 batters. Here was his sequence, starting from entering with 2 outs in the 4th... Caught stealing (to end the 4th), 5th: HR, HR, K (called), wind-blown single, HR, HBP, HBP, K (swinging), WP, ground-out. Even if the HR's should have all stayed in the part, that's not great.
  8. jkcarew
    Fort Myers BABiP so far: Larnach .280, Miranda .227, Lewis .200, Baddoo .143, Costello .125, Jeffers .118, Contreras .100, and Michael Helman .050. (Meanwhile Lewin Diaz is at .600 ) SSS, of course. But not THAT small...Helman's is the smallest...he's 1 for 20 on balls in play. Team OPS is .588 and they're 6-4... because the Pitching has been ridiculously good. Still, it will be more fun to watch this club when balls start finding the grass, as it's always a struggle to hit the ball over the fence in that park and that league.
  9. jkcarew
    Rochester has the makings of a team that is going to be able to lose in all kinds of different ways. One of the more relevant thing that happened last night is that Ryan Jeffers finally had a game where he contributed offensively. Meanwhile, he threw out 2 or 2 would-be base stealers. He's now thrown out 3 of 6 on the young season. Rortvedt has thrown out all 4 who have attempted steals against him. I find it interesting that, so far (10 games), neither Rortvedt nor Jeffers has appeared in a game at a defensive position other than catcher. It's either catcher, DH, or bench for both. The time behind the plate seems to be split evenly.
  10. jkcarew
    "Generating hard contact, like we discussed with launch angle, is not all that valuable in a vacuum." Misleading. Hard contact is always valuable. Always. Exit velocity has a high positive correlation with BA, SLG, BABiP...everything...even bullets hit on the ground. Launching is good. But, the data that shows results are better when the ball is launched is skewed (at least to some extent) due to the fact that the skill to put the ball in play to the opposite field is nearly extinct. The data is going to show it's especially ineffective (relative to pull/launch/K) when nobody can do it well...or that when it occurs, it occurred by accident by someone that was actually trying to pull/launch. If a twelve year old Rod Carew or Tony Gwynn were to come along today, there would be a coach changing his approach by the time they were 16.
  11. jkcarew
    $3 to watch two different (well, mostly the same) world championship teams win games in about 2 1/2 hours. Yeah....that sucked.
  12. jkcarew
    Yeah...when I see such awful results out of the gate, my mind goes to the same dark place...or that he has an injury that he's not disclosing. Hopefully, neither. But it sure would feel 100% better if he posted even one positive outing soon. The only things we (fans) have seen from him so far in 2019, including the ST game appearances, have been bad.
  13. jkcarew
    After their first 250 at-bats (collectively), Fort Myers team BA is .201 and team SLG is .297. Was looking forward to watching them given the very large number of top-20 position players in the lineup, but so far in my two attempts it's been like watching paint dry. As a group, still getting their BB, and not striking out a ton...but still waiting for the base hits, and x-base hits.
  14. jkcarew
    Aren’t the bullpen’s issues easier to take for the thousand or so of you that predicted exactly this?.......No? Fandom.
  15. jkcarew
    Austin riding pine tonight against a right-handed starter. (His first two game with SF were both vs lefty starters.) Belt at 1B, Gerardo Parra in LF.
  16. jkcarew
    Yep...it's probably fair to call what they are do experimenting. Out of the gate they seem to have it like this (in terms of Left Field) Belt > Austin > Posey. Hopefully, the experimenting will result in somewhat regular at-bats for Austin so we can see what he can be.
  17. jkcarew
    Wrong! Austin gets a start in LF against a lefty. Belt benched, and Buster Posey plays first base. So, they'd rather have Austin in the OF than Buster Posey. (Austin was removed for a left-handed pinch-hitter later in the game.)
  18. jkcarew
    Again, the early tea-leaves indicate Austin might be used to platoon at 1B and come off the bench. Last night's starter for the opponent was a lefty. Austin started at first, and Belt moved to LF. Let's see what happens when they see a few right-handed starters. Bottom line, it's kind of moot. Once Cron was signed, there was no way Austin was going to remain on the 25-man roster all year, or even very long (outside of injury to Cron/Cruz).
  19. jkcarew
    The encouraging thing for Romero was "only" 40 pitches in 3 innings and zero walks. Strike % was up a bit, 3-ball counts were down. More of that, and we're in business. Discouraging for Stewart, but I don't think hugely discouraging. It was kind of the perfect storm of what his challenges will be, and what we already know them to be. He couldn't finish guys off with K's when he needed it most...and all the balls in play, despite only a couple of hard-hit balls, resulted in multiple consecutive hits.
  20. jkcarew
    Belt to LF (made a small handful of appearances in the OF in 2018)...Austin to 1B. They’re not going to play Austin in the OF.
  21. jkcarew
    The bats have been a bit slow coming out of the gate, to say the least. Gordon, Javier, and Kirilloff being out makes it seem worse, I suppose. Rooker now with 9 K’s in 16 PA at Rochester (after posting 12 K’s in 23 PA in spring training). But there’s no question the results are fantastic when he happens to swing where the ball is.
  22. jkcarew
    I think ranking Colina as a potential major league power starter is more hope than projection. Beware the 6-0 (ish) power starter...they usually make good relievers, and we got a lot of them: Colina, Romero, Graterol.
  23. jkcarew
    Don’t think Cave is going anywhere. A catcher and Adrianza are the most vulnerable, I think...but again, it could be Cave based on his option...and still good chance it’s moot if only one guy needs to DL in the next several weeks. Doubt seriously that any major league team sees Austin as an outfielder, even a platoon OF. In 91 appearances, Austin started 3 games in the OF...that was awhile ago, with the Yankees...and they replaced him in two of those games.
  24. jkcarew
    I tend to agree with this. As far as the Twins are concerned, Romero's a reliever. I suppose things could change in the long-term if he were to start showing command/efficiency, including a quality 3rd pitch. The signs that he would be challenged starting in the majors have been there for some time. Was never an innings-eater or particularly efficient. Tended to fade late in seasons...K-rate took significant hits as he faced better batters in AA/AAA. A lot of us were probably mesmerized by low-level results and MPH...especially the MPH, since it's something the system had lacked forever. Still probably true that if he develops major-league command...even with just the two pitches...he's a good back-end guy. Without the command...well, that's what he is right now.
  25. jkcarew
    IMO, the key for Astudillo's value is the developing power, not the 'defensive flexibility'. A .300 hitter isn't that valuable if it comes with zero walks and no power (and no base-running)...which was the case with Astudillo for the majority of his professional career. But, his power seems to be developing...showing way more SLG in the last couple of years than he had earlier in his professional career. So, if the x-base hits continue to come along, he has a very legitimate shot to hit his way into a regular major-league role. I just think it's going to be as a catcher/DH or as a 3rd-baseman. It seems pretty clear that the Twins consider him only an emergency option in the outfield, and no option at all in the middle infield. So, in that regard, it's not looking, at least so far, like he's going to be a 'super-utility' guy.
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