LaBombo

I doubt that even saber-inclined Cubby fans are looking much past that ERA, and it might even be starting to test the patience of a James disciple like Epstein. Just brought it up because, like his fellow FA Sean Marcum, he's not quite the outright bust that he appears to be at first glance.

His peripherals are virtually identical to last season, with the exception of a high babip and low strand rate. Unless he gets hurt or falls apart in the second half, he'll have roughly double Correia's war value for about 3 million more than twice the seasonal price.

Dusty 'base-cloggers' Baker has won the MoY award three times and finished second three times, albeit in twice as many seasons as Gardy. And Dusty Baker's words (not Dusty Baker, due to board policy) are chock full of absolute blithering idiocy. Not saying Baker is a bad manager, or Gardy for that matter, but their only exceptional skill is keeping players happy. That obviously has considerable value, but by itself it doesn't make either guy a top-tier manager.

Given the success rate of 1st round MLB draft picks, Hicks topping out as no better than a league-average CF was a statistically sound bet on the day he was drafted. And given that modest success rate, getting a league-average CF with a 14th overall pick is a big win for the organization. Anything else is pure gravy, even for a franchise that can no longer count itself among the league's economically disadvantaged underdogs. With respect to using OPS to gauge Hicksie's progress, it seems like that instrument is a little too blunt. It makes his May (.707) and June (.708) look identical, but they were two very different months. His May OPS was a product of a very strange combo platter. The slash line alone (.202/.250/.457) is pretty improbable, and the fact that he managed even modest productivity with the misfortune of a .200 BAPIP borders on the miraculous. June was even stranger. He slashed .280/.308/.400, largely on the strength of a very high .389 BAPIP, which he managed despite his line drive rate sinking to just 11%. That's dangerously close to just half of the league average of 19%. His K rate rose to 25%, and he lost about half his walk rate for the 2nd straight month (13.3%/ 6.0%/3.6% BB rate in April/May/June). So even allowing for the arbitrary, small-sample nature of month-by-month trend analysis, there just doesn't seem to be very strong evidence of real progress here. Instead, it looks like a young man who's all over the map because he's still learning how to hit. It would be nice if the Twins would let him learn a bit more in the low-stress environment of Rochester, where he can concentrate on developing his strengths, not hiding his weaknesses.

Let's set aside the fact that since it's a "garbage season", then the output 'lost' by possibly replacing a demoted Hicks with a player who has played better than Hicks this season is pretty much meaningless. Where you're losing me is when you admit that it would be reasonable to have expected Hicks to struggle in AAA to start the year, then play the 'insane' card when someone dares to suggest he may benefit from time there after struggling to hit his weight and not look like a squirrel on a busy highway once or twice a game in center. If you're worried about addressing low sanity levels, maybe you could start with the people in the Twins organization who thought that the kid who struggled to adapt to every level should skip a level. Hicks played has played nearly 500 games in center in the minors. How much better do you expect him to get in the next 200? Seriously, how often do players with that many games in a single outfield position improve dramatically because they play one more season there? Infield, maybe. Outfield? Not a very good bet. He's batting a buck ninety halfway through the season, strikes out in over 27 percent of his AB's, and has struggled on defense. And yet he was supposed to be so good that the preseason notion of starting him at AAA due to service time considerations and therefore depriving veteran players of the chance for the Twins to be competitive that Hicks' tools were supposed to provide practically brought Terry Ryan to tears in an interview. Being down a little bit on Hicks at the moment and more than a little on the organization for how they've handled him seems pretty reasonable to me. That would be a "bizarre statement", if someone had actually made it. People have suggested a couple of months in AAA for Hicks to work on his game. With the exception of Arcia, the guys you mentioned won't be here for one or two years, for heaven's sake. What the hell does that have to do with where Hicks spends July and August?

Well' date=' that was a coherent and thoughtful preemptive argument, should anyone post something like that. There's a post or two by smerf concerning the possibility that Hicks may turn out to be a 4th OF. Although that sounds a bit pessimistic to me, it's hardly some sort of crazy, outrageous floor when discussing Hicks. First off, a good 4th OF isn't "bleep", he can be a valuable player who may approach NBA 6th man importance on some teams, especially one that needs to DH an aging, defensively-challenged corner OF more frequently. On the other hand, if you simply meant that Hicks as a 4th OF would feel like a "bleep" outcome after the years of Twins PR and prospect ranking hype, then that's absolutely understandable and I would agree. Second, smerf also emphasized that Hicks may end up as a 4th OF more as a result of the Twins' system-wide depth in the outfield than due to any possible lack of potential. With Arcia virtually a lock for one corner and Buxton the heir apparent in center, Hicks may need to either hit like a corner OF or develop into a kind of rich man's Ben Revere corner defense savant in order to crack the starting lineup when Buxton arrives, which may be a only a year or so away. Either of those outcomes is possible, and wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Is it to early to evaluate where Hicks will end up as a player, both in terms of overall value and defensive position? Sure it is. Is everyone pulling for him to improve and play an important role on an eventual contender? Absolutely, as far as I can see. But with his defensive issues in center and his continuing awful contact rate vs RHP, a problem which plagued him throughout most of his minor league career, it's not too early to mention the [i']possibility [/i]that he may top out as less than a star, or even average, CF or corner OF.

Yes, at first glance, but not a lock. There may well be a sleeper candidate ready to leap onto the national stage and claim the title of 'The Next Bill Smith'...

Unfortunately their are disreputable WC vendors still trading in the platinum-plated variety. And as both a Twins fan and an objective real-time broadcast journalist, you know Bremer wants Joe to both have and to have earned the very best.

Tried that very thing every time I ended up falling off her leaky roof or faking appendicitis to escape a blind date with an amoeba packing a beehive hairdo and substandard hygiene. And yet I am somehow still able to forgive her. For feeding me and keeping me alive.

A whiff of Mauer indebtedness before the final at bat. Alternate version of Dick's walkup invocation for Mauer: "Wouldn't it be nice if Mauer provided a special victory memory for the many fans here who've helped make all 12 of the solid platinum toilets in Mauer's mansion possible?"

Hey, a sympathy like! A dying quail that'll look like a screaming liner in the box score tomorrow. Suck it, Like slump!

The broken bat retirement present or the deck chair from the infamous passenger ship?

Hicks instead. Looks like the 'Free Aaron Hicks' campaign spurred on by his buck ninety/one walk/one xbh AAA blitzkrieg has finally paid off... You were essentially correct about the 'right-handed bat' part, though.

At this point it looks like any remaining defense of the Twins' handling of Hicks simply boils down to 'they're professional baseball people and you're not, so shut your yap'.

Agree that bad pitchers don't match up well against good hitters, but that seems less like a wacky, luck-o'-the-draw rock/paper/scissors matchup problem than it does an utterly predictable and ideally avoidable rock vs. eggshells problem. And while I'm in get off my lawn mode, the article seems a little off on a couple of points. The first is that when multiple rosters of a franchise are dominated for over a decade by another team, it generates a such a media-attracting tradition of losing that even the most junior and most transient team members are very likely aware of the problem. The second is that the massive roster turnover since the golden age of playoff ineptitude is a much more compelling indictment of the Twins' difficulty in acquiring and retaining talented ball players than it is a defense against the notion that the Twins (and who are we kidding, we're really talking about Gardenhire) simply can't beat the Yankees.

Yup. In other words... http://mimg.ugo.com/201002/36028/cuts/animal-house-speech_288x288.jpg "Forget it, he's rolling".

His xFip is only a half run greater than last year, and he wasn't healthy enough to start the season on the roster. There's nothing wrong with talking about his mechanics or pitch selection, but what he's actually accomplishing on the mound is only a little worse than what we should have expected. On a team with one of the worst rotations in baseball, it's a little early to be talking bullpen.

No, the forum still has no rule against being wrong.

No.

Interesting that it's been a moving target over the years. Bill James threw out the math-friendly yardstick that SB attempts must succeed twice as often as they fail (66%) to have value. Then 70% became the unofficial threshold in the Beane era. Lately at fangraphs there have been some studies that suggest the real break-even may actually be closer to 75%. Those numbers are general ones that don't reflect which base is being stolen or how many outs there are. One other thing they don't reflect is that pitchers supposedly pitch less effectively with base stealers "creating havoc" (tying infielders' shoelaces together? spraypainting graffiti on their uniforms?). But Stats inc. did a study suggesting that the distraction of straight steal attempts did more to hurt the performance of the batter than that of the pitcher.

+1. Weighted on base pct (wOBA) is finally showing up outside of fangraphs once in a while, and it gives Pedroia a slightly bigger lead over Desmond, .357 to .347. It was a bit surprising that it didn't give Pedroia a bigger edge, but then again its correlation to runs scored is only a few percent higher than OPS.

It's interesting that people believe that Hicks' very good 40 PA's in spring training rightfully earned him a job, and that his 40 dreadful PA's to start the regular season should be ignored. At least some of Hicks' 'improvement' is just the simple fact that it's difficult to be historically bad for very long. And some of it is that his very bad luck on batted balls in play has evened out. So while he's certainly looked better, quite a bit of that is just perception and better luck. If you're batting .153/.221/.267 against right-handed pitching after a third of a season, it's safe to say that you could use a little time in the first level you ever skipped in your career.

Having Hicks play in AAA after his rehab is a painless way to address what was pretty clearly a mistake dating back to before opening day.

Nice to see some optimism about the future and an improvement in the present from 'abysmal and borderline unwatchable' to 'below average but competent and much more enjoyable to watch'. But let's hope the front office keeps their eye on the future instead of the number of games the Twins are behind a team who they trail by over 100 runs worth of run differential. A decent debut by Gibson is my main hope for this week, and anything else is gravy. Mmmmmm. Gravy...