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LaBombo

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Everything posted by LaBombo

  1. LaBombo
    Alternative article title: "Twins still a pretty bad team despite record". If three of your five best players by WAR don't have significant trade value despite being on team-friendly contracts, then the question of whether or not your team is an over-achieving mediocrity that needs to trade them for the best reasonable offer just... sort of works itself out, doesn't it?
  2. LaBombo
    I'm hoping the Twins see the rest of this year as a chance to improve their talent instead of literally cutting their losses by fielding the lineups that will provide the fewest losses this year instead of the most wins next year and beyond. If Castro figures in their future plans, then he could use the rest from Garver playing in half the games.. If not, then that's all the more reason to see what Garver can do in the majors.
  3. LaBombo
    Yup, now that the fig leaf of contention is gone, it's hard to see what's keeping the Twins from thanking Top Gimmy for the memories and giving Garver regular playing time, unless it's that they don't believe he'll ever warrant regular playing time.
  4. LaBombo
    The 2006 Twins were a much better team than the 2017 Twins are. They were 61-44 and 5th in the AL on August 1st, and had outscored their opponents by nearly 60 runs. They also benefited from the total implosion of the Tigers, who led the Central with a 71-35 record on aug.1st, but went an abysmal 24-32 the rest of the way.
  5. LaBombo
    I edited exclamation points into it to make it louder. A little trick I learned while traveling in non-English countries like Indonesia and East Los Angeles.
  6. LaBombo
    'The Dodgers are a playoff team!!!' 'The Twins are not a playoff team!!!'
  7. LaBombo
    Either Santana and the other marketable veterans aren't going anywhere in the offseason just like they aren't going anywhere now, or else they'll be shopped in what may be a potentially less lucrative winter meeting environment. The former now seems much more likely to me. And I'm not terribly optimistic about the Twins organization making any significant improvement through free agency this offseason after its current owner and his new front office shored up the "total system failure" of the worst team in the history of the franchise with a one-point-something WAR catcher whose first search hit on Yahoo is person locator BeenVerified's boast that "We Found Jason Castro". So that pretty much leaves the progression of the young players as the only meaningful avenue of improvement. Maybe that's enough. I don't know. But I doubt it.
  8. LaBombo
    If nothing else, games like this force me to admire the optimism of Twins fans who actually hope to see the Twins play a few extra games against good teams at the end of the season.
  9. LaBombo
    Hoping the Twins will reimburse Eddie for the cost of the (non-mini) storage unit. And that it's not part of a chronic hoarding problem.
  10. LaBombo
    Colon is getting fatigued? Who knew a morbidly obese middle aged man might begin to tire halfway through a professional athletic event? In other Los Angeles news, Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson is beginning to suspect that Sergeant Al Powell was right about the terrorists shooting at the lights... http://ejtangonan.weebly.com/uploads/1/8/5/1/18519042/970849313_orig.PNG
  11. LaBombo
    With any luck he left some graffiti in the Twins' clubhouse at Target Field to remind everyone in the future of those brief, glorious days when the Twins counted as one of their own the thief who stole the 2005 AL Cy Young award from Johan Santana. http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m20sjenlJQ1ql4teio1_500.jpg
  12. LaBombo
    Is it just me, or does Puig still run the bases like he's being radio-controlled by a pre-schooler with ADD?
  13. LaBombo
    I guess if you had your heart set on the Twins firmly committing to the "optics" of contention, then it's hard to see a better available move than picking up Garcia. But the trade comes with a much steeper commitment than a #20-ish prospect or a few million unspent dollars from the season's payroll budget. It comes with a commitment to the improved performance of the current youngsters on the MLB roster as almost the only meaningful source of improvement in the team for the foreseeable future. If you see them turning the Twins into contenders in 2018 and beyond with minimal outside help, then adding a fig leaf of contention like Garcia for 2017 and standing pat for the future makes a world of sense.
  14. LaBombo
    Staff it with people willing to correct the mistakes of histrionic millionaires.
  15. LaBombo
    What's the replay overturn rate in MLB? One percent? Less? Whatever it is, the rate of reversal in favor of poor plays like sending Grossman home has got to be less than half what it is for 'smart' plays. In other words, the replay guys either unconsciously or deliberately despise rewarding fundamentally poor baseball no matter what the replay shows.
  16. LaBombo
    Not only does the idea of a good trade for a starting pitcher not bother me at all, it now seems almost unavoidable to me if the Twins want to field a competitive rotation in 2018. But my concern is that a trade made at the deadline will come with the kind of high cost and limited selection that you usually expect from multiple trades that happen during a short timeframe in a seller's market. Trading away significantly more assets or settling for less of a pitcher than in an otherwise comparable offseason deal in order to 'get someone now' to help contend seems to me like it could be a step backward in the Twins' effort to play postseason baseball, even if that pitcher were signed through 2018. As for run differential, it looks like its predictive value at any given point in a season depends on who you believe. It seems like the majority of the BProp/Fangraphs/etc stuff tends to lean towards 70 games or so as a tipping point at which run differential becomes a good predictive tool for the W/L performance of a team over the rest of the season. At 90 games it takes a lot to break free of the wins & losses trajectory that previous run differential has put a team on for the rest of the way. On the other hand, if FalLeviney are smarter than run differential about the Twins' competitiveness the rest of the way and can get a '2018 or beyond' guy that they really like, before the deadline and without overpaying significantly for the last two months of his 2017, well, have at it, boys, and let's go kick some third order win percentage butt!
  17. LaBombo
    I think it might be in West Virginia.... http://img2.imagesbn.com/p/9780938985273_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG#West%20Virgina%20hillbilly%20260x415
  18. LaBombo
    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HSLpqKAKKc8/Tkn_uOmyOPI/AAAAAAAANOA/ClHGqWDzOE0/s1600/funny-pictures-what-would-you-do-for-a-klondike-bar.jpg
  19. LaBombo
    ... vs. his arch-enemy: http://www.countertopspecialty.com/images/Corian-countertops-hickory-smoke-drain-board-label-crop-cmps.jpg
  20. LaBombo
    Look at the bright side. As often as I'm wrong about the Twins, about baseball in general, and frankly about everything else in life as well, I'm probably reverse-jinxing the Twins right into the postseason by predicting they won't/can't make the kind of trades required to have a shot at contention.
  21. LaBombo
    I get it, we don't want a continuous rebuilding project, and anything can happen in the playoffs. In theory. And a guy like Neshek shouldn't cost us a guy like Gordon. But the thing is, you can't trade for just Neshek. You absolutely need to also go get a 3-ish starting pitcher to be relevant in the American League in September. And that will most definitely cost you a Nick Gordon or the like. If the Twins had fought their opponents so far this season to a draw in run differential, it might be easier for me to fathom the Twins converting their minor league talent 'surplus' (*shudder*) into MLB pitching with the idea that it would make them a serious contender. As it stands, I've seen a Twins team that's been much more fun to watch than I expected, and yet not really much better than I expected. And what I expected was a team clearly improved from what it was last year, but just as clearly not ready to contend. That's still how they look to me, despite the W/L record.
  22. LaBombo
    Love Neshek. But if the Twins burn a prospect on a two month reliever rental in an effort to reach the coin flip game with a team that currently ranks second from the bottom of the A.L in third order win percentage, then my 'let's give it a couple of years' phase of the FaLeveyine era will end instantly, because I'll know pretty much everything I need to about their odds of bringing meaningful success to the Twins.
  23. LaBombo
    So will the guys who pitch for the Winnipeg Goldeyes, when they hit the bars after the game and then Tim Horton's drive thru on the way home.
  24. LaBombo
    Or maybe a guy whose idea of 'Mixed martial arts' is a judo exhibition in a go-go club. http://www.retrocinema.wetcircuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/OurManFlint-dancing3.jpg
  25. LaBombo
    30 minutes or so ago I got into the car with my elementary-aged daughter and turned on the game. The radio broadcast was in a commercial break, but the station display crawl said TWINS - 4 ASTROS - 1. Then Provus came on sounding encouraged that the Twins had mounted a comeback, which made no sense, and then said that they trailed 10 - 4. Me: "Ten to four !?! The crawl said they were up four to one!" Kid: "No, after you looked outside it showed a zero after the one for the Astros. Our radio isn't big enough to show how bad they're getting beat." Me: "Why didn't you tell me when you saw it?" Kid: "You seemed pretty excited that they were ahead".
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