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LaBombo

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Everything posted by LaBombo

  1. LaBombo
    The decision whether to trade Perkins should be based almost entirely on what the Twins would get for him. If it's less than a B+ prospect middle infielder or starting pitcher, then I'd rather see them hang onto him. If by 2016 they're not good enough to warrant his presence, they'll have bigger problems than missing out on what a B/C prospect probably would have developed into. It's interesting how many people keep mentioning Perk's very team-friendly contract. Odds are that at least a few of those same people have argued elsewhere that a low-budget season has essentially rendered the Twins' player payroll nothing more than a big pile of monopoly money. In other words, things like burning up team control on Hicks or blowing $15 million on a qualifying offer to Morneau mean nothing because the money will end up going unspent otherwise. By that logic, Perkins' contract is irrelevant other than as it applies to his trade value. Same thing, to a lesser extent, with Doumit and Willingham (anybody who was against entertaining trade offers for him in the 2012-13 offseason changed their mind yet?).
  2. LaBombo
    Not sure, but it seems to me that Ryan was referring not to an innings limit, but rather his policy regarding not getting involved with possessed people... http://www.american-buddha.com/ghostbust.161d.gif
  3. LaBombo
    Period! As in end of sentence. And debate. Why? Because Morneau is to the batting in of runs what International House of Pancakes is to... Tough night, Ox. You're apparently out of the weekly TD Punctuation Bee on a borderline call, and you also biffed the RBI ('s? :0 ) water-balloon throwing contest by leaving a sentence fragment ripe for quoting out of context. For what it's worth, the M&M presentation was awesome, but... http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsK/9460-3481.gif "Shut up! Just shut up! He doesn't get it! He'll never get it! It's been 4 hours! The cows can tape something by now! Forget about it please!"
  4. LaBombo
    Sounds ok to me. The only thing they risk is the small chance that Dozier's offense will catch up with his defense, and at his age, it's hard to project much growth there. Rosario is the only impact bat at second in the minors, and he's not exactly a lock to stick there given the Twins' fetish for middle-infield leather. Also, if I were Plouffe and I wanted to remain a Twin, I'd want to play anywhere but where the Twins think that Sano will land when he reaches the majors.
  5. LaBombo
    RBI's are primarily a function of opportunity. Baseball Prospectus took all the suspense out of that debate a decade ago. As for stats like RISP, they're usually just small sample white noise rather than a measurement of a repeatable, measurable skill. While there are probably players who are somewhat consistently above or below average 'in the clutch', it's just random for most players, which is why it's almost never discussed in talent evaluation. And Morneau is the poster child for the meaninglessness of RBI and RISP. He's a 'clutch' hitter, and that's why he's batting .360 with RISP this year, right? Then why did he bat .196 in the same situation last year? Because he forgot how to be 'clutch'? No, he did it because, just like in any other set of 100 to 150 plate appearance, random stuff happens.
  6. LaBombo
    It's true that he's not hitting the ball far. But he's not hitting more line drives than usual, so it probably is mostly good fortune that balls in play are turning into hits at a .340 clip for him. In his 570 plate appearances in 2012, his babip was exactly one point lower than his career average. In about half that many PA's in 2011 he managed just a .257 clip, but that's not enough to affect his career babip by more than a couple of points. So it's just not very likely that he'll sustain a .295 average, especially without turning fly balls into homers. My guess is that some of his power will return, and he'll have a second half that looks more like his 2012 season: more homers, lower average. What a half or whole year of that is worth to the Twins, or anybody else for that matter, is hard to say.
  7. LaBombo
    And even the batting average is probably a mirage, since it's resting on the unstable foundation of a .340 babip, which is about 45 points above his career average.
  8. LaBombo
    Yep, lower K rate = real improvement, higher babip = mostly just better-looking numbers... It would be interesting to hear the real behind-the-scenes Hicks promotion thought process, not the Ryan PR spin about owing it to Justin, Joe, and Josh to bring the best spring training CF north. Even if they were 90% sure he'd succeed, it seems like the 10% contingency plan was a little weak even before Mastro's flat tire.
  9. LaBombo
    He's improved, but some of that improvement is really just his bad luck with batting average on balls in play evening out. He still often looks lost batting left-handed, and the numbers show most of his improvement since April has come against lefties. It's way too early to worry much about his future, but it would be nice for Hicksie to work on his game in AAA, where he doesn't have as much to think about.
  10. LaBombo
    There was a river of kool-aid regarding Hicks, Parmelee, and Gibson before the season started, but that seems to be gradually drying up. Also, you might be lumping 'competitive' and 'competent' together in the same expectations pile. Lack of competitiveness may have been a foregone offseason conclusion, but little things like a center fielder who can play ball, or Marcum instead of Pelfrey, those are things that help restore competence to the product on the field. And if even competence is too much of a stretch for people, then a decent CF alternative would at least ensure that Hicks is in the majors because it's the best place for him, not because the Twins don't have anyone else to put out there.
  11. LaBombo
    If your point was that WAR isn't the ideal tool to compare small samples of AB's like Hicks and Borbon in 2013, fair enough; even a more detailed analysis is of limited use with sss's like these. But if you're suggesting that Borbon, at age 27 and having posted a career.279/.321/.354 MLB line, along with a 1.6 WAR in the 3 seasons he received significant playing time, wouldn't be a significant upgrade over Hicks... that's a hard sell.
  12. LaBombo
    Pitchers... or hitters?
  13. LaBombo
    He needs a smartphone app with a 3 second delay and a profanity/crazy filter on it.
  14. LaBombo
    What you're saying makes perfect sense, and yet it's hard to believe that it's really like that. If Ryan is holding Gardenhire accountable for wins and losses with a pitching staff composed almost entirely of spare parts, then Gardenhire may end up being better off somewhere else anyway, whether it's his choice or not.
  15. LaBombo
    It's great to see Sano crush high A pitching, and fingers crossed that he can continue that at AA New Britain eventually. But the kid has just over 1000 minor league at bats and fewer than 200 games played at third, where his defense, while improved, is still very much a work in progress. Also, the Twins FO people who deemed Hicks "ready" have apparently traded a year of team control in his prime for 3 months of a .153/.221/.267 line against righthanders. If they repeat that same lunacy with Sano and he fails anywhere nearly as spectacularly as Hicks, then those people need to be replaced with people who know what they're doing.
  16. LaBombo
    I mean this in the best possible way, one favs from way back in the day... http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Ur1arQifJw/TgSdV56rErI/AAAAAAAAAeU/e-uuc4WdKMA/s1600/500full.jpg
  17. LaBombo
    The edit button. It's like a time machine, dude.
  18. LaBombo
    Crap. Tie game, and I have to go feed a friend's rabbit. "Game thread Raunchy Metaphor Team, Assemble!!!" http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UZcnGGUdL1s/TolpN0EvvRI/AAAAAAAADyg/KwdLZuzLGTE/s1600/AnchormanMoment13.JPG
  19. LaBombo
    The generic run expectancy table said we were owed more than a run in that situation. My personal 2011-13 Twins run expectancy table was thinking maybe at best a 1 in 10 chance we scratch one out, so much so that I wasn't even disappointed...
  20. LaBombo
    Am I just being a homer, or did the umpire's called third strike have a little Frank Drebin on it? http://nesncom.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/6a0115709f071f970b0147e03cb049970b.jpe
  21. LaBombo
    A friend's older bro painted his rusty, faded old collegemobile VW with interior latex housepaint. The results were... unusual. Watching the game for less than 30 seconds, and Bert just said "tommyhawked that ball"... He's a national treasure.
  22. LaBombo
    So it's not all bad...
  23. LaBombo
    Yeah, forgot about the rainout because I wouldn't have been able to watch anyway.
  24. LaBombo
    Thought I misheard that, given that the sac bunt is written on Gardy's stone tablet of situational managing.
  25. LaBombo
    The box score said Correia was cruising to that point, so it didn't seem outrageous that he was still in. Just seems like the Twins starters are giving up one-run leads in the 6th and 7th a bit more often than they should. Gardenhire is probably so thrilled to see a guy last that long that it's hard to pull the plug. And given how hard the bullpen has been ridden at times, that probably factors into the call. Just please, please, please, no post-game Gardy comments about Correia's divine right to stay in...
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