Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

arby58

Verified Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,723

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    8

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Tracker: Picks & Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by arby58

  1. arby58
    This reminds me of the farmers in my family who 50 percent of the time complain that there isn't enough rain and complain the other 50 percent of the time that there is too much rain.
  2. arby58
    Are you by chance related to Jorge? Just using OPS, Polanco's high water mark for the year so far was .694 on April 15th. Since then, game by game, it pretty much steadily declined: .681, .643, .634, .626, .612, .612, .621, .594, .588, .582, .579, .577 on April 29. Yes, he had a HR the next game, to jump it up to .604, and after his most recent game it is .613 - but this trend line is hardly what I would call 'starting to heat up' (unless you think a two game heater is statistically significant).
  3. arby58
    Speaking of trading Polanco - Jorge is currently hitting .181, has an OPS+ OF 83, and a WAR of -0.2. I wonder if the Seattle discussion board commentators are complaining about the trade?
  4. arby58
    Last year, a lot of commentators would have axed Max Kepler at just about any point before the All Star break - he was hitting under .200 as late as June 28th. Then he turned into one of the Twins most productive players in the second half. This year, the 'black hole' that is Santana had a stretch of 4 HRs in 5 games, which helped fuel their current 10-game winning streak. Recently, Farmer has come up with some clutch hits, and Kepler, after returning from an injury, has had game winning RBIs in consecutive games. It's a long season, and these claims that the Twins 'won't let go' because they then have to 'own' their mistakes glosses over the Keplers of the second half of the 2023 MLB season. The Twins front office and managers/coaches see these players every day, including batting practice and other situations the casual fan does not. I'm far more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
  5. arby58
    Recency bias. Larnach only played 10 games in the month. Player of the week, sure, but Julien played 29 games, hit 7 HR, and also played solid defense. No way Larnach's 10 game performance outweighs Julien's for the entire month.
  6. arby58
    In general, sure, but the idea of using your best reliever in a high leverage situation in, say, the 8th rather than 9th inning makes sense to me. If, say, the 1-4 hitters are coming up in the 8th and you're nursing a one-run lead, bring in Duran in the 8th. If their best four hitters score 2-3 runs in the 8th, Duran will probably not get a chance to impact that game.
  7. arby58
    It's interesting to note that starts 5 and 6 for Pablo last year were messy as well - 5 earned runs in 4 innings pitched in start 5 and 6 earned runs in 6 innings pitched in start 6. No doubt it's a coincidence, but he bounced back nicely after that with a couple of quality starts. Even so, his 9th start was a dud against the Dodgers (not the only pitcher to have that happen against them), where he gave up 5 earned runs in 4 2/3rds of an inning. Every pitcher will have his rough patches.
  8. arby58
    It's the right move - both Funderburk and Sands are part of the Twins future, and Bowman much less so. I sort of expected Funderburk to do well and have been pleasantly surprised by Sands. Perhaps the idea of sending Sands down to 'stretch him out' has some merit, although Sands might be following a long line of so-so starters who did well coming out of the pen. Speaking of so-so starters, Louie Varland's first start at St. Paul went pretty well - 5 IP, 1 ER, 4 hits, 1 walk, 5 Ks.
  9. arby58
    White Sox had just swept the Rays.
  10. arby58
    Santana has 4 HRs in the last 5 games - maybe you're jumping the gun a little? The season doesn't end after the first 30 games, it's just beginning. Martin has a grand total of 62 at bats in MLB and around 250 at AAA - he's still got room to grow. For the good things he did while up, it worked out to a -0.1 WAR. MLB isn't a development league.
  11. arby58
    Count me among the surprised as well. It's the right move - he needs to keep playing every day. That said, 16 runs scored in 22 games is a lot, and 6 doubles in 62 at bats is pretty good as well. It's nice to have some more speed in the line-up - no doubt he will be back.
  12. arby58
    Santana now has home runs in three consecutive games - laugh all you want, Boof.
  13. arby58
    That's exactly what happened last night, when Julien pinch hit for Farmer in the 7th and Kepler for Margot in the 8th.
  14. arby58
    The underlying stats are really bad, which makes you wonder if it is fixable. Of course, Max Kepler looked really bad until his recent return, and now he looks much better.
  15. arby58
    It's hard to believe ANY option could be worse than Varland so far. The stats are mind-boggling bad: 0-4 record in 4 starts, just 16.2 innings pitched, 27 hits, 6 home runs, 9 walks, an ERA north of 9, and a WHIP north of 2.
  16. arby58
    You generally expect pitching to be ahead of hitting early in the season, with the cooler weather and hitters not having seen individual pitchers much. I'll feel more comfortable about the BP when Duran, Thielbar, and Topa return. The good news is those three (if healthy) shouldn't wear down as much later in the season - and some useful depth can get stashed back in St. Paul.
  17. arby58
    The Twins value position flexibility, which suggests to me it is Miranda or Martin. Probably Miranda since he's been up before.
  18. arby58
    These guys do plenty of stretching - go to any game early and you'll see most of the players on the field at one time or another doing stretching. Early in the season is always more difficult - the ramp up effect, cooler weather, for starters - and the Twins weren't the only team to have key players go down yesterday. In fact, CBS Sports recap headline read "MLB Opening Day 2024 winners and losers: Dodgers, Juan Soto, lefties have standout day, but injuries stack up."
  19. arby58
    Varland has upped innings each of the last three years - 103-143-150 - but I think 180 is where he would top out this year. Agree on Lopez - he threw 194 last year and 180 the year before. I've said many times I think Ober will have a break out year. He threw a combined 167 last year, so the range seems about right. Ryan threw 161 last year and 147 the year before, so the range seems reasonable. Paddock, though - I'm thinking getting anything over 100 is gravy.
  20. arby58
    I subscribe to Trade Rumors, and one of their experts was asked to rank the 'top 4' in pitchers in starting rotations in the American League. His answer: For simplicity’s sake, I’m going with RosterResource top 4s and throwing in a few contenders: Mariners: Castillo-Gilbert-Kirby-Miller (and I love Bryan Woo too!) Twins: Lopez-Ryan-Ober-Paddack (and I love Louie Varland too!) Blue Jays: Gausman-Berrios-Bassitt-Kikuchi Rangers second half: deGrom-Scherzer-Eovaldi-Gray/Mahle I’m pretty easily taking the Mariners for the best top-four rotation in the AL. I do think the Twins’ rotation is sneaky-good.
  21. arby58
    It just isn't that big or that fat a zero. No team hits on every acquisition, and he was third of four players that matter in the trade for Polanco. It's akin to counting paperclips.
  22. arby58
    Maybe wait to see how the trade works out, at least until they actually start playing real games? The 'needed to add a starter' relies on tunnel vision about how a team roster can be made up to win. They went deeper on relief pitchers, and teams with really good relief pitching can win a lot of games. It still feels like they have at least 5 decent starting pitchers - more than a lot of teams that are considered contenders.
  23. arby58
    Desclafani was not the primary return for Polanco, and suggesting 'the whole deal is looking like a fiasco' during Spring Training is jumping the gun a whole lot. My guess is Topa will be relied on even more so now that Duran is down, and Gonzalez is generally considered one of the Twins' top five prospects. This reminds me of fans who declared the Lopez trade last year a 'fiasco' when Arraez was hitting .400 and Lopez started off struggling a bit. Seemed to work out ok for the Twins.
  24. arby58
    There are various maps of MLB influence you can find with a basic Google search. It doesn't look to me like these other teams 'basically get to claim Iowa.' It is more about geographic location - northern Iowa shows up as more aligned with the Twins, and, not surprisingly, southern Iowa is more aligned with the Royals, while eastern Iowa is likely to be with the Cubs or Cardinals (again depending on proximity). It is also notable that the Cubs AAA farm team is in Des Moines, which will create some affinity. Besides, we're talking Iowa here - it's a state of 3.1 million population, which is hardly more than a blip on a media market map (and I live there, so I should know).
  25. arby58
    I posted elsewhere, since the Rays joined MLB in 1998, only 5 teams have won the World Series more than once. The Yankees and Red Sox had the most (4) and the Giants had 3, the Astros and Cards 2 each. Nobody else has more than one - including the Dodgers and Braves and other large market teams (Phillies, Cubs, White Sox). It's just not that easy to 'emulate the winners' - and last year's three largest payrolls (Mets, Yankees, Padres) not only didn't win the World Series, they didn't even make the play-offs. There's no 'secret sauce' - but being competitive, making the play-offs most years is far superior to the alternative.
×
×
  • Create New...