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Jim Hahn

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Everything posted by Jim Hahn

  1. Jim Hahn
    Of course development is a part of this . You don't believe a player can't improve after 1000 at bats? But that isn't really the issue. Largely this strategy of the Twins both punished him for getting injured/having migraines and failed to help him work on improving by sending him home. Having the extra year of control only benefits the Twins if Buxton becomes a very good player. All I am saying here is I don't think that this was the best strategy if the goal is to help to help Buxton become the best player possible.
  2. Jim Hahn
    For any baseball organization there are 2 main considerations when dealing with players (both major and minor leaguers). What is best for the player and what is best for the organization. In Buxton's case what was best for Buxton is pretty clear to me. If he was healthy, once it was clear that his timing was back, he should of been brought back to the majors. He should have been given as many ab's as possible. This would have given him a chance to work with major league coaches, and see major league pitching again. If he did well, he would of gained some confidence going into the off-season. If he did poorly, he could have given a plan of what to work on. Interestingly enough, this was probably the best thing for the organization as well. Anything they could do that has the best chance of getting Buxton to be the best player he can be as soon as possible surely should be the goal. So for me the question is, is gaining the extra year of control worth delaying Buxton s development? Buxton may not become the superstar his talent says he could be. Still, I am pretty uncomfortable with a strategy that is not in the best interests of the player. Especially when the major benefit to organization, the extra year of player control, could be potentially achieved through an extension. It is also likely that this strategy made an extension more difficult to achieve.
  3. Jim Hahn
    I actually like Stewart as a starter more than as a reliever. His stuff seems very comparable to Gibson's. He doesn't get enough strikeouts, but he doesn't give up hard contact either. When he is going well, he gets quick outs, and can get deep into games with a low pitch count. He needs more consistency on his secondary pitches, and perhaps a better understanding of when and how to use his 4 seam fastball. Hopefully, he can get there faster than Gibson did. I have hope for Gonsalves and Littel , they just needs very sharp command. Mejia kind of looks like a multiple inning reliever to me, though maybe he gets more chances to start. I believe he is out of options, so I think he starts the year in the bullpen.
  4. Jim Hahn
    I have no real problem with this deal. Schoop is the youngest of the various free agent 2nd baseman and probably the most likely to put up the best year, if not the most likely to put up a good year. I also like that it is a one year deal. It signals that the FO has some confidence in Gordon and may very well mean that they think Lewis can stick at short, and isn't too far away either. If the Twins are going to be good soon, it is mostly going to come from the young guys in the system. Schoop won't get in the way of that and he could be a big help in the short term.
  5. Jim Hahn
    It still happens in the American League. Look at what Gardenhire did with Cuddyer. After he became a right fielder, he played a bunch of games at 2nd. He was also switched to 1st a lot some years. He at times appeared at 2nd, 3rd or cf well after he was established as the regular rf. Teams do what they have to. The thing is that when Cuddyer was playing out of his regular position it was a sign of injuries or bad performances than any grand plan. The Twins actually tried a bit of flexibility when they tried Sano in rf one year. We know how that worked. I am not against flexibility, with big bullpens and short benches it is a necessity. Too much flexibility, however,probably means something has gone wrong.
  6. Jim Hahn
    Number 2 isn't really true. Go back and look at lineup construction in the 50's and 60's. Harmon Killebrew played 3b, of, and 1b almost equally during the 1st half of his Twins career. He did it to help get the best possible bats into the lineups. The Twins did much the same with Tovar. Stengel did the same with the Yankees. He was famous for playing his catchers in left field. Ken Boyer was a gold glove, all star 3rd baseman who one year played over a hundred games in cf. He also played ss a lot. Now, the question is why this practice died out. Some it may of been expansion. Not having an excess of good players you were trying to get into the lineup seemed to be part of it. The other part of it was having a bunch of players who hit but often didn't field very well didn't really help you win. That was the reason the Giants traded Cepeda rather than trying to continue to play him and McCovey at the same time. I also think that teams feel that not having to platoon is better. They would rather have their depth at AAA rather than moving too many people around. The Dodgers are different maybe, or maybe they just have so much money that they can afford to have 2 former all star 2nd basemen sitting on the bench.
  7. Jim Hahn
    You have been preaching positional flexibility and i get it. But keep in mind there are only 2 types of true utility guys. The true glove first guys who can truly play almost any position well. These guys might not help you much with the bat but seldom lose games with the glove. The other is the so called super utility guys who can win games with their bats and you hope their defensive short comings won't hurt you too much when you play them somewhere other than their best position. I think trying to get too flexible with a lot of these guys is a mistake. Sure if somebody gets hurt or sick or late in a game when you need to pinch hit to try to win a game, yah then throw Astudillo or Austin out into the outfield. But you shouldn't go out of your way looking to put guys like that out of position. They are barely passable at their primary positions. It also isn't very likely that their bats are good enough or at least that much better than the alternatives, that they should be forced into the lineup at a position they aren't good at. I agree that Kepler should bring his 1b glove along. I also think that plan works a lot better if both his bat and Cave's are forcing them both into the lineup.
  8. Jim Hahn
    I agree in a general sense that Grossman's on base skills would be more valuable if they were paired with another skill. I also think that on base skills are undervalued right now, in part because the popular new stats are constructed to overvalue power. Even OPS does this where a single becomes twice as valuable as a walk and a home run roughly 5 times as valuable. I go back and forth on Grossman, I would think a guy with on base skills and better defense might be more valuable. Someone like Wade, if he can hit.
  9. Jim Hahn
    I wonder if the Twins won't try to slide Austin through waivers at some point this winter. If they can, they still have another bat available at AAA, which would add depth. Cron could still be cut this winter if a better option presented itself. I would think a utility type bat who can play 1st, 3rd and maybe 2nd might be signed. It is also likely that Kepler will need his 1st baseman's glove this year in order to get him,Cave, and Rosario into the game at the same time. It also might a bit early to make too many assumptions about what the final roster will look like, or how it will fit together.
  10. Jim Hahn
    You may be right about Molitor not abusing him. I do think abuse can occur in more than one way. Pushing a pitcher past his normal pitch limit in an appearance is one way. Too much work over a season or seasons would be another. Another way is not getting enough rest between appearances, or even multiple warm ups over a short period of time could be another.I don't know enough to say for sure that Molitor abused some of his relief pitchers, but it sure seemed that some of his relief pitchers had multiple appearances over a short period of time . This seemed to happen to the same pitchers a few times. Of course it is also true that Reed had pretty high over several seasons, as you said.
  11. Jim Hahn
    The problem with the corporate culture is often they don't talk to the people who have to implement a policy or the people/customers it affects. In this particular case there are almost certainly ways to make people safer, keep the lines moving, and still be cost effective. One of the ways to do that is to that is to talk to the people that have will have to implement that plan. Maybe that is happened in this case, but the people making policy seldom have to deal with the people it affects. It isn't that they don't care, but when you are sitting in an office making policy you often don't foresee the possible fallouts and potential difficulties that people on site are going to deal with.
  12. Jim Hahn
    You are right,"if" is the question. I just think now is the time to find out "if" Sano can answer that question at 3rd and if Buxton can answer similar questions in center.
  13. Jim Hahn
    I don't really want to see the Twins sign or trade for a full time 3rd baseman. Sano solves so many future problems if he can be counted on as full time 3rd baseman. By not making Sano 1b/DH you keep all your options open on how to structure of/dh/1b. As Rooker, Kiriloff, Weil or whowever get ready, you will have spots to work them in. You will have a chance to discover whether Austin is the real deal. You can still sign bat first options to cover at 1b/DH who can be traded or released as the prospects prove they are ready. I am sort of hoping for flexible solutions to the Twins current issues.
  14. Jim Hahn
    I would like to see a full year of Sano at 3rd base. Given the the uncertainties surrounding him, I expect the Twins to sign a utility type infielder capable of playing 3rd and providing some offense. So Sano might end up shifting between 3rd, 1st, and DH. I think Gordon is likely a better ss than Polanco and closer to major league ready than most here seem to. Nevertheless, I doubt if the FO will put all their eggs in that basket. The question becomes whether the Twins want to start the year with Polanco at short or go with someone else there and get Polanco over to 2nd where he likely belongs, to start the season. What it comes down to is how the FO views Gordon, how soon they think Lewis will will be ready to be a major league shortstop(if ever), and how strongly they want to go all in on 2019. So, while I expect the Twins to do something with the middle infield, I am struggling to guess what it will be. Ryan used to sign a stopgap when he had a position of uncertainty, a Baptista or Castro. The fans often hated this but when he felt the prospect was ready, he would trade or cut the stopgap and promote or allow the manager to shift the appropriate replacement into that spot. It wouldn't surprise me to see this FO do something similar.
  15. Jim Hahn
    I agree with with your thoughts about war. I was too lazy to do a more comprehensive evaluation. My larger point is if Buxton is healthy and can stay healthy, I really believe he will be the kind of impact player that Betts is, even if it takes a little more time. He has shown enough flashes of that possibility. The other thing is if the FO had not decided to play games to get an extra year of player serfdom, we might of seen 100 AB's of a healthy Buxton and we might not be having this conversation.
  16. Jim Hahn
    That might be an optimistic answer. They may well be instituting a policy that looks like it addresses safety issues rather than doing the research, work, training and expense of coming up with something that will provide actual safety.
  17. Jim Hahn
    To me at least, a good share of it is probably health. That was probably a factor for the Boston players as well. You don't have to be on the DL to have hurts that affect your performance. As far guidance, well we have all been there, you can hear the same thing in different ways and it doesn't help, or doesn't register, until suddenly it does.
  18. Jim Hahn
    I expect Navaretto to eventually have a useful big league career. Still there are 4 catchers already on 40 man roster, with Rortvedt right behind him with likely a bit more ceiling. I don't think Navaretto gets protected. Jay had a tough year. At this point draft status means little. Nobody wastes a rule 5 pick on him if he has lost the velocity and stuff that made him a high draft choice to begin with.
  19. Jim Hahn
    In 2017 when Bogaerts, Betts, Buxton, and Sano were all 24, Buxton had twice the War of either Betts or Bogaerts. Sano had 50 points of OPS on Betts. Neither Betts nor Bogaerts have had particlarly straight roads to their current lofty status. I have no idea what Buxton and Sano might do in 2019. But if they are healthy, big ifs maybe, I would expect pretty darn good numbers. Probably not what Betts did in 2018, but then Betts will have a hard time duplicating that himself. Young players don't all follow the same paths to success. Given health, I really expect special things out Buxton. His talents are overwhelming and i believe he will work hard. Sano, is a bit ifier, but their is a lot of talent there too. Now, I understand your point of not depending on them for 2019. Still, you can't write them out of the plan either. Trading either at this time seems foolish to me. The answer is probably to build some depth, pray for good health, and see what happens.
  20. Jim Hahn
    This is a snapshot in time. A couple of years ago when all the young studs in Boston were breaking in they didn't look all that special. Now they are in their prime and were healthy this year. Maybe they will continue to look like this for a long time, maybe injuries or down years will screw them up. If Buxton and Sano are both healthy and show consistency in performance instead merely flashes you might sing a different tune. Combine that with improvement from the other young core guys and early appearances from the next wave and everyone will will be praising the boy geniuses. Even though it a normal process that most players and teams need to go thro.
  21. Jim Hahn
    Thank you. I appreciate your response. I had read about Manuel, thought he was more of a FO type than an actual scout, I appreciate the clarification. I did know about the video advance scouting as well. If you have more information on how their amateur scouting has pivoted and you can share it, I would be interested in that.
  22. Jim Hahn
    The policy may not be discriminatory but unless it provides clear benefit(safety in this case) which it seems it probably doesn't, why are they going out of their way to upset an important part of their their customer base?
  23. Jim Hahn
    I didn't read the article, I suspect it to be beyond my former high school math teacher level. I do find this whole analytics thing interesting. Ryan's focus was scouting, and he seemed to keep the analytics dept., really the whole FO, at a bare minimum. Clearly the analytics as well as the rest of FO as been beefed up considerably under Falvey. What is less clear is what is going on with scouting. It has been reorganized and some long time scouts have been fired. I have read little more than that. Has that department been beefed up? What are are the qualifications and backgrounds of the replacements? As was said, analytics is only as good as its input. There are number of qood prospects and young major leaguers who are products of the old regime. Not everything they did was a complete failure as some posters seem to suggest. If someone has a little insight into what is going on with the scouting part of Twins organization, i would like to read about it.
  24. Jim Hahn
    Three concerns with the Wes Johnson hire. Usually major league pitchers are in need of minor refinements rather than major overhauls or a build up from little established fundamentals like a raw prospect or a college kid. Major league pitchers are in such different places in their career from where college kids are,that it requires a a very real mind shift to deal with them. The 2nd concern is is managing work loads, when to get up relievers, when to let starters work through early inning difficulties and other things of this nature. Molitor and his pitching coaches seemed to struggle in these areas at times, and he and they had been around major league pitchers for years. The final concern is the mental aspect of pitching in the majors. All major league have enough stuff to get people out, the best ones or at least the ones with the longest careers, have to figure out the art of pitching. Using one pitch to set up another, handling failure and the other mental aspects of pitching. While some of that is certainly addressed in college, one would think that this part of the game is on a different level in the majors.
  25. Jim Hahn
    I thought Brian was arguing that the primary goal should be getting to the playoffs, I tend to agree with that, since you can't win the World Series unless you do. While being being as good as the best teams is a great goal, it doesn't guarantee you anything. Several years ago Kansas City barely dragged itself itself into the playoffs and nearly won the World Series. They weren't the best team in baseball that year. So it happens. The primary job is to get to the playoffs. Several posters seem to arguing that if can't make yourself as good as Boston or Houston you have no chance and you might as well tear things down and start over. What I want is a team that can be a contender for the playoffs every year. If you do that you will likely get your chances at the World Series.
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