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LaBombo

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Everything posted by LaBombo

  1. LaBombo
    Probably, unless there's a retro fantasy draft mode in 'The Show'for chronologically gifted PS3 youngsters interested in the championship years. Hint for them: sort by hitter K's + HR's.
  2. LaBombo
    http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5ou85R7g81qba7v1o1_500.gif
  3. LaBombo
    Brian D. is batting .216 and on pace for 30+ homers. Deerzier?
  4. LaBombo
    You're right, good catch. And something I'd never heard of, "Eyeball whitening". Thankfully there are no images.
  5. LaBombo
    He prefers the term 'giftedly tan'. And it's attached to a pretty damn long left arm.
  6. LaBombo
    Wouldn't worry about it. Read somewhere that the Twins' offense is vastly improved from last year, so that dying quail is just around the corner.
  7. LaBombo
    There are maybe 15 or even just 10 dudes on the planet whose cosmetic surgery expenditure exceeds the combined total of those ladies. And Bob is like, 5 of them. Good gig if you can get it, though. PS Where is his other hand?
  8. LaBombo
    Price utterly failing at pitching to contact tonight, yet recording several outs... http://www.gkworld.com/media/img/gkworld/W275-H385-Bffffff/I/item29531pb_jpg.jpghttp://www.gkworld.com/media/img/gkworld/W275-H385-Bffffff/I/item29531pb_jpg.jpg
  9. LaBombo
    They grew up in a house with a four foot high ceiling. True story.
  10. LaBombo
    http://cdn2.crushable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/ill-have-what-shes-having-when-harry-met-sally.gif
  11. LaBombo
    There's over a week of April left. We had some go bad before the first pitch late last year.
  12. LaBombo
    http://img24.exs.cx/img24/2738/pedro1hw.jpg Better?
  13. LaBombo
    Yeah. Happy for him that he gets to sit in the dugout and give his own scouting report on his former teammates. Lefties are batting south of Mendoza against Price. That, and Fuld is probably still recovering from the shock of being traded 48 hours ago from a California team to one that usually plays at least 3 or 4 April home games on Hoth.
  14. LaBombo
    Is it too late to change my vote in the Gibson first ballot HoF thread? Oh, wait, never mind. I didn't take the bait that time...
  15. LaBombo
    Nice grab by Florimon on what could have been a very ugly hop off the turf. Then he follows it up with the lost in the roof thing. Sort of makes you appreciate how routinely the Twins infielders made that play look easy in the Dome. And if Joyce gets a hit for that, official scoring will have permanently ceased to be the slightest bit relevant to me.
  16. LaBombo
    Agreed. He's much more likely to be moved to another team than to a corner of the Twins outfield as a starter. But the chance that he'll bring something valuable in return is almost entirely based on whether he can improve the quantity and quality of left-handed contact. Expecting that not to happen and hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
  17. LaBombo
    Agree about Dozier, as a separate issue from whether he should move. As for Florimon, whether he deserves a job based on the (low) likelihood that he develops into at least an average shortstop won't enter into it until the Twins have a strong replacement option who does deserve the job based on that likelihood. Nunez will probably be as bad defensively as Florimon will eventually wind up being at the plate, which will probably be similar to what PF did last year. Florimon wins that battle not on his own merit, but by virtue of the fact that the Twins have the worst rotation in the AL (.4 WAR vs. 2.6 for AL-leading Detroit, for the 'Twins could surprise the aging, Fisterless Tigers' optimists), and need all the help they can get in the field.
  18. LaBombo
    But the offensive bar rises to 'corner outfielder' the day Buxton enters the lineup as a center fielder. That may not be this year, but it won't be two full seasons from now. Not unless something goes so wrong with Buxton that it positively dwarfs the disappointment with Hicks so far. So Hicks will have to improve considerably at the plate just to tread water in a corner spot, and he'll need to basically become a completely new hitter to be a real asset. It could happen, and there's no reason not to keep sending him out there and hoping for the best, but it doesn't look good.
  19. LaBombo
    It's odd that Hunter and Revere's names have come up so frequently, and yet there's been no mention of two other former Twins outfielders, Rich Becker and Bobby Kielty. Yes, Kielty was less athletic than Hicks and not a center fielder, but they were both switch hitters who were vastly (for Kielty, historically, it turns out) better from one side of the plate, and they were also low-average hitters who struggled to make contact despite being patient and adept at drawing walks. Here's a link to an article about the relative rarity of switch hitters dropping switch hitting at the major league level. There are a few notable names (including Becker), but it's a pretty short list. Then there's another one specifically about why the bleep Kielty never gave up switch hitting despite the largest switch hitter platoon split in history, and his weak side being the more frequently used left-handed side. He never stopped switch hitting despite lingering in AAA until age 35.
  20. LaBombo
    As spycake noted, the top half of the list contains some of the most notorious swing-and-miss power hitters of their eras. Also, the bottom half of the list contains a whole bunch of hitters whose eras were less offense-friendly than the one that Hicks is playing in. And while Hicks certainly seemed to have been somewhat snake-bitten with regard to BABIP last season, he's lagging in that regard this year primarily due to the fact that he's putting the ball on the ground three out of every five times he makes contact. Also, while I understand the rationale for raising the average to .225 to expand the number of possible comps, the simple fact is that .200 is an unforgiving, hard threshold in most franchises, and batting .190 instead of .225 is a much greater impediment to sticking in the majors compared to, say .210, than a 20 point spread that doesn't bracket the .200 cutoff would. In other words, there's a reason .200 has a name, and .225 and .210 do not. That said, yes, he should have until at least the end of May (if not longer) to get it in gear, regardless of whatever veneer of competitiveness the team may still have by then.
  21. LaBombo
    Don't mean to pick nits, but Gomez was 21 when he debuted in the majors with the Mets, and 22 his first season with the Twins. Hicks was 23 and a half on opening day and was 24 a week after the season ended. That's a significant difference. Hicks also had nearly 1000 more plate appearances in the minors than Gomez did prior to reaching the majors. Hicks' babip initially looks like bad luck that will eventually even out, especially for a fast hitter who should scare up a few extra hits by legging out grounders. But the complete lack of power suggests that even when he's making contact, it's not the good kind. That's backed up by a line drive rate (less than 15%) and a ground ball rate more than double his fly ball rate, and a GB/FB ratio nearly twice what it was last season.
  22. LaBombo
    That's two weeks vs. the two years Presley put up a greater than zero WAR. Two more than Hicks. Two years >>>>>>> two weeks. Nobody is suggesting Presley should have been the starter, or that the Twins should give up on Hicks. But last season should have disabused the Twins of the notion that Hicks was a can't-miss major leaguer. They watched him struggle for three months, demoted him, traded for Presley then dumped him, and entered the season with a 34 year old infielder who had not successfully played baseball since 2011 as the backup CF. Any front office can make a mistake, but this wasn't just a mistake, and it wasn't some sort of perfect storm of fluke injuries or unforeseeable decline. It was a flawed process of identifying need, evaluating talent and risk, and asking some stone-simple 'what if' contingency questions. And until the Twins either re-think that process or find more qualified people to execute it, they're in danger of winding up with their organizational pants around their ankles again.
  23. LaBombo
    Maybe "they" should be more responsible for putting actual ballplayers on the squad than a washed out player attempting a comeback.
  24. LaBombo
    http://www.moviehole.net/img/majorleague4.jpg 'That's all we got?!? Four bleeping car references?'
  25. LaBombo
    Favorite Twin, partly because it looks like nobody has mentioned him yet: Gaetti. Favorite pizza, partly because it looks like nobody has mentioned it yet: Homemade, with seasoned ground beef.
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