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LaBombo

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Everything posted by LaBombo

  1. LaBombo
    You can see it on the faces of the Target Field crowd: Nothing beats an extra helping of free 2016 Twins baseball !!! http://www.gigapixel.com/press/socialmood01.jpg
  2. LaBombo
    You're still keeping track of the game, so that probably answers the second question...
  3. LaBombo
    http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/RfPF_QZN_aLPBGg3DgCCmw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3NfbGVnbztxPTg1O3c9NjMw/http://l.yimg.com/os/publish-images/news/2014-06-23/79f5f840-fb08-11e3-8f96-0f49f5b5804c_smoldering-boot-WSB.png
  4. LaBombo
    Alternate image for Jep save opportunity during April, May, and September day games... http://www.wnyc.org/i/620/372/c/80/photologue/photos/4465649733_dcddc80777_b.jpg
  5. LaBombo
    If you're going to work a Twins game this year that seems like the one thing you'd never forget. http://charmcitywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/doyle.jpg
  6. LaBombo
    If you start giving away loss spoilers, what's next? Lost spoilers? http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03042/the_ending_3042749c.jpg
  7. LaBombo
    Mine's going to be the other half of a nice double play combo with the Nishi shirsey in one of my basement storage bins that won't get opened again until an estate sale some day.
  8. LaBombo
    If you land a GM job before the deadline, would you like to trade for a practically like new third baseman who was only driven home on Sundays?
  9. LaBombo
    The secret of your taste in music is safe with us... http://photosaws.sparkpeople.com/guid/79565afc-3eb8-4176-b470-e5e1eb8141ad.png
  10. LaBombo
    Yup. And it tastes a lot like raspberry juice, if raspberry juice were made from freshly squeezed awful. http://cdn2.stylecraze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Benefits-Of-Beetroot-Juice.jpg
  11. LaBombo
    Probably just Machado About Nothing. What offense have these men done?
  12. LaBombo
    .275/.303/.456 That's Nunez's slash line if you knock it down 60 points to put it in line with where it would probably be if his batting average on balls in play were at his career average. His lower walk rate and higher K rate are compensated for by his slightly higher LD% and medium/hard contact numbers, so maybe call that a wash. The big changes are his much higher fly ball rate, way up from a 2015 GB/FB of 2.10 to a 2016 rate of 1.34, and a home run rate on fly balls of 13.2%, up from 9.5%. Most projections had Nunez putting up a .280/.320/.420 or so line this year. With his stellar start, a .295/.315/.450 season seems like a good possibility. That would put him at the high end of 'average' offensively at third, and sneak him into the top 10 at shortstop. At age 29 it may be that he's blooming late into a diamond in the rough, or it could be that he's just the result of the mathematical dictate that even a team like the Twins, having a thousand things go wrong with its season, will have a few things go right, like an average player having a good year at the plate. My guess is that Nunez is having his outlier career year, and it will probably end up going to waste other than being one of the few individual bright spots in a bad season. And if that's the case then an extension would have no value other than generating deceptively positive PR for marketing.
  13. LaBombo
    The easy tell is that the ficus is much less likely to bunt without a sign.
  14. LaBombo
    The Blue Jays waived him during a 93 win division championship season, having resigned themselves to AL MVP Josh Donaldson as their 3B. No other team has waived Valencia or let him walk. With the exception of his four week August stay at Boston's Tudor Wharf Residence Inn, all of Valencia's production after the Twins has been for winners. The Twins were the only other loser to move him, and did so in the middle of 4 consecutive 90+ loss stinkbombs. Once again, and I can't emphasize this enough, Danny Valencia isn't the problem. He's a minor symptom of the problem, which is that over the past 5 years the Twins have often come perilously close to not being able to differentiate between a ballplayer and a ficus plant.
  15. LaBombo
    That's primarily my standard as well. The Twins' farm system was really the only cause for optimism in 2012-14, and so far this year it's produced mostly just cringes and mutterings about 'just wait 'til 2017'.
  16. LaBombo
    There are two potential problems with that sort of sentiment. The first is that it appears to set the bar for Twins front office management at the somewhat disappointingly low level of 'No dumber than the average fan'. The second is that in a case of the fan base being generally right when the FO is wrong, the flip side of that sentiment often turns into some version of 'We don't have access to all the information the front office does, so we're not qualified to second-guess'. In a way, though, guess it balances out. The first issue more or less dooms the Twins to futility, and the second part sort of disqualifies us from having an opinion about that doom in the first place.
  17. LaBombo
    Valencia has slugged over .500 every year since leaving the Twins, with the exception of his age 29 season split between franchises. He's nothing like a David Ortiz - level gaffe, but he's also not a free pass for the Twins' Way either. They let him go for essentially nothing while they were among the worst teams in baseball. And just to be clear, I'm infinitely more concerned about the Twins not having a system in place to extract value from a Danny Valencia during a 90 loss season than I am about the Twins not having Danny Valencia.
  18. LaBombo
    It's hard for me to look at the third base situation and see it as anything other than one more sign that the front office has either given up 2017 already, or else that yet again it simply doesn't have both its figurative oars in the water with regard to player valuations. It's pretty clear that the organization views Sano as either the awful right fielder of the future or a man without a defensive position. The only third base prospect in the minors, Blankenhorn, is in rookie ball learning how to hit and shave. The best impending free agent at third, David Freese, was about as good as Plouffe in 2015 and is four years older, so cue sad trombone for that option. So unless the Twins pull off some sort of trade for a third baseman, they've effectively limited their options to Plouffe and Nunez. They both projected to slot in this year about halfway between replacement level and the worst 3B's among qualifiers, although Eduardo's unsustainable BABIP does put him above that level at the moment. Nunez will be 30 next season, and Plouffe will be 31. In other words, the Twins are apparently willing to accept play at third base next year that's probably going to be just a bit above replacement level. Even playoff teams sometimes find themselves relying on a player or two like that in their everyday lineups. But it looks to me like the Twins are already penciling in a 2017 lineup made up mostly of 1-2 wins above replacement mediocrity.
  19. LaBombo
    I like that ESPN Gamecast always wraps up a Twins loss with this encouraging phrase: "RECAP NOT AVAILABLE"
  20. LaBombo
  21. LaBombo
    And Dozier is every bit as flexible and adaptable at the plate as Ted was in the anchor chair.
  22. LaBombo
    "You maniacs!!! Damn you for getting our hopes up!"
  23. LaBombo
    I'm still kind of happy every time he goes to the plate without conking himself in the head. On the other hand, it looked like the only reason he slid into second on his stolen base was to avoid showing up the catcher and pitcher. What a polite young man. And neat too.
  24. LaBombo
    Recently unearthed Mayan writings suggest that the Earth will end when a major league baseball team's bullpen is saved by a Buddy Boshers, whatever that is.
  25. LaBombo
    Same here, and my reaction was basically 'Wow, I guess Twins baseball is no longer considered one of the Big Four sports'.
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