Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

LaBombo

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    9,171

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    49

 Content Type 

Profiles

Minnesota Twins News, Rumors & Analysis

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospect Rankings

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Minnesota Twins Trade & Free Agent Rumors

Minnesota Twins Fan Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by LaBombo

  1. LaBombo
    Yup. As opposed to the pressure of this http://www.obstructedview.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Charlie-Brown-Pitching.jpg happening on every 4th pitch.
  2. LaBombo
    If cable only offered a choice between Twins games or Byron Buxton games, I know which I'd pick.
  3. LaBombo
    With Willi, Arcia and occasionally the Jasons out there, there should be plenty of Web Ungems this year. If Hicks can't hack it, they could end up with a historically bad defensive outfield.
  4. LaBombo
    And there is your Silver Lining Award winner for today, ladies and gentlemen!
  5. LaBombo
    Mastro and who else? He's not a bad CF when healthy, which was basically never last year. So that means the entire game plan for center field this year is to hope that Hicks improves radically and if not, that Mastro can stay healthy and hold down the fort until Buxton shows up. On the bright side, it may increase the odds of one more very high draft pick before respectability is restored.
  6. LaBombo
    Pitchers bat fairly often in the NL, and the fatality rate is extremely low.
  7. LaBombo
    Presley's nothing special, but the Twins ended up with him because they got absolutely nothing from the same two guys they're counting on this year. So there's that.
  8. LaBombo
    Humming a bit of Culture Club's 'Karma Chameleon' can get almost any song out of my head. The downside is that then Karma Chameleon gets stuck in my head, which is quite a bit like being repeatedly shot in the forehead by a BB gun. Yeah, Glory Days seems about right, and the sad thing is, the glory days weren't all that glorious.
  9. LaBombo
    Yeah, but it was totally the small sample size, not that Butera was bad or anything. Pretty sure of this because I remember Gardy mumbling something about him having quality at bats in a postgame interview after yet another crushing defeat in which Butera went 0 for 4. Plus, framing ftw!
  10. LaBombo
    I'm pretty sure that I learned from the Aaron Hicks debate last March that the service clock is either a figment of our imaginations, or at the very least completely irrelevant, a notion also confirmed by Ryan. Never mind the fact that the expiration of team control is obviously the elephant in whatever conference room extensions are negotiated in, and that at least one prominent agent has stated off the record that under no circumstances will he even allow his clients to sign extensions, thus making the service clock the sole determination of their entry into free agency. Sooooo... nothing to see here. http://starsmedia.ign.com/stars/image/article/843/843378/duped-stormtrper-star-wars3_1199343879.jpg Move along. Move along.
  11. LaBombo
    So the organizational depth chart for center field has been narrowed down to Buck NinetyTwo, a scrappy tailbattler made of stained glass and soap bubbles, and a guy whose "development takes precedence over organizational need" commandment is written on the stone tablets of the franchise roadmap. The Rob Ant'ny era is shaping up to be a real barn burner. And the really exciting part is that after the bar-lowering Bill Smith reign of terror, it could go on for years...
  12. LaBombo
    It's come to this. Someone is more indignant about the idea that Aaron Hicks posting a sub-.300 OBP would make him a lesser hitter than Revere than they are about the idea that Aaron Hicks might post a sub-.300 OBP. Hicks hitting .225 will A) almost certainly leave him offensively inferior Revere due to the low OBP and far more importantly, leave the team without anything even remotely resembling a prototypical leadoff hitter. The worst I could do by taking the 'under' is break even, since it was emphatically correct last year. If anything, I would bet the house on .225, since that is where the projections place him. And once again, barring major breakthroughs in walk rate or power, that still makes him a less valuable hitter than the Revere projections.
  13. LaBombo
    wOBA gives Revere a 50 point edge in 2013. That's massive. wRC+ gives Revere a nearly 30 point edge. That's huge. 30 points above Revere is an All Star, so that makes Revere an All Star compared to Hicks last year. Have yet to see a projection that shows Hicks eclipsing Revere in either wOBA or wRC+ this year. So no reconsideration necessary. Will be extremely pleased if Hicks can exceed those modest projections for this season, but have nothing invested in whether he exceeds Revere. However, it will be interesting to watch Reveresie's career, since extreme one or two tool players can have pretty volatile aging curves. He may flame out early as a result, but not in his age 26 season.
  14. LaBombo
    What he lacked in arm strength he made for with occasional accuracy issues as well. It occurred to me once that if equipped with a special kevlar-topped shoe, Ben may have more success punting the ball into infield than throwing it. Probably the worst thing about the trade (which I liked) for me was that no Revere meant that the Twins completely sold out to the notion that Hicks was the center fielder of the present and the pre-Buxton future. Hasn't worked that way so far. For people concerned about squeezing every possible win out of a 90+ loss season, Revere was a huge loss last year and probably will continue to be a better player than Hicks et al for another season.
  15. LaBombo
    Speaking of Gleeman, he isn't terribly high on Ibarra either. From this past fall: "Speaking of left-handers with nice-looking ERAs and poor secondary numbers, the Twins added 24-year-old reliever Edgar Ibarra to the 40-man roster. He posted a 1.93 ERA this year between Double-A and Triple-A to convince the Twins he needed protecting from the Rule 5 draft, but he's not a hard-thrower and a 54-to-29 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 61 innings was unimpressive. Ibarra also had a 4.69 ERA with poor control and just 69 strikeouts in 79 innings last season." As far as I can see, neither Guerra or Ibarra cracked his top 40 prospect list.
  16. LaBombo
    To me, in this context at least, 'upside' means potential to show lasting improvement, not have a better season than last year or career norms. Otherwise, what's the point of the discussion? One good year in AAA relief has very little value to the future of the franchise. So looking at your list in that regard, Guerrier is obviously off, and I would argue as jharaldson did that after last year's derailment and 8 years in the minors without earning a look in the majors, Guerra is too. Raley looks to me as if the Twins had lost Diamond in the Rule V and wanted to go out and get the next closest thing, so that's a no. Ibarra is a marginally better prospect than Raley, and probably makes the cut just because he's a lefty. Pressly barely makes it as well, primarily on the strength of a good 2013 despite weak peripherals. So basically half that group looks to me to have little to no upside relative to what Worley has done or even relative to the high end projection of a Worley converted to relief. Not everybody turns into Glen Perkins just by going to the pen, but it's not rare for failed starters to succeed in relief.
  17. LaBombo
    I'm one of the starry-eyed optimists who hoped Worley could be salvaged by at least initially working in relief. While there may not have been anybody predicting Diamond's imminent demise after the 2012 season, there were several people doubting whether he could repeat that performance. Starters who get fewer than 6 K's per 9 innings (and Diamond was well below that) have to have everything else go right: great control, high ground ball rate, low home run rate, no bad luck on strand rate and balls in play. Even so, 2013 was a much steeper decline than almost anyone expected, even allowing for the fact that he had bone chips removed in the offseason.
  18. LaBombo
    Just caught the last inning, and Bremer just said, of Arcia I think "Twins fans should have every reason to expect him to hit 20 homers". While I have high hopes for Arcia, I can't begin to explain how unsurprised I would be if nobody hit 20 homers for the Twins. And there's certainly nobody who fans should have "every reason" to believe will hit 20 out.
  19. LaBombo
    Cheated and googled it. The cover is so awesomely, quintessentially late 60's/early 70's that it has to be shared: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/43/FT_itwajbotb.jpg/220px-FT_itwajbotb.jpg
  20. LaBombo
    If they had a stronger track record of making that kind of trade and succeeding it would be more encouraging. They failed to cash in on him (and Cuddyer) the first time when he was younger and more valuable
  21. LaBombo
    See your point. Was thinking of the rotation eventually but yeah, probably at the start there will be a middle reliever who nobody sees as having a major league career. In fact, if you increase the threshold to 'likely to contribute to a contender', there's already a familiar name who everybody is pulling for but expecting virtually nothing from down the road: Guerrier. Obviously expectations were minimal after last season, but the failure to employ Worley in a bullpen role to try to salvage him will still puzzle me even if he's out of baseball in a year or two, which is probably not a whole lot less likely than him resurrecting his career.
  22. LaBombo
    That's the publicly stated position of the Twins as well. Personally my odds for Parmelee to succeed are about 1 in 10, or about 5 times more likely to happen than for Kubel to ever contribute to a contender. That possibility assumes Gardenhire will not be managing the Twins.
  23. LaBombo
    Like Worley, you mean?
  24. LaBombo
    That's a false choice. It presumes that Worley or any other Twin has no value to the organization if they can't get a C prospect for them. That's empirically not true. All Worley had to do to have value for the Twins was to have more upside than a Rochester pitcher who is older or who has never succeeded at the MLB level or who has never even profiled as major leaguer. My guess is that Rochester will employ at least one pitcher in 2014 who fits all three of those criteria.
  25. LaBombo
    My bad, but in my defense, after 3 years of conspiracy theories that a relatively young team with arguably the best rotation in baseball and a strong offense is 'ripe for a fall', my patience has worn thin. Perennially underrating the Tigers is nowhere the tradition that the downgrading of the Packers is for Vikings fans, but it's certainly gained some ground the last few years.
×
×
  • Create New...