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LaBombo

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Everything posted by LaBombo

  1. LaBombo
    ^2. There's no way 3rd base is even a top 5 priority for Ryan. Plouffe is still learning the position and has a pretty good chance to be one of the five best hitters on the team next season. This is just Ryan telling Plouffe they expect more from him next season. On the other hand, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to add a low rent Hannahan-ish lefty for a platoon at third. Kind of like the Leius/Pagliarulo platoon in '91. Leius was a converted shortstop who ended up a plus defender at third after some polishing, and he had some pop against lefties while being pretty useless against righties. Pags was the steadier defender, and had traded most of his power for a decent average by that point in his career. It worked then, and could work again if they'd let it. Of course to make room on the roster, they might have to give up carrying a little of their customary bench baggage, like a third catcher, 13th pitcher, or the ever-present injured and unavailable guy who should've been on the DL a week ago.
  2. LaBombo
    Even two such signings seem like a relative rarity. And it seems like an absurdly optimistic scenario for the Twins relative to their history. There's still plenty of time for Ryan to prove that wrong, but the deals handed out to Guthrie, Baker, and Feldman make that possibility appear even less likely.
  3. LaBombo
    Oh, c'mon, I'm the only really mean one, and I at least feel bad about it. That being said, here are three reasons Myers and Parmalee aren't comps. First, Parmalee is almost four years older. That's like 28 years of difference in either dog or prospect years. Second, Parmalee has only excelled over a whole season while being young for his league one time. Myers has done it all but one, and in that season (AA at age 20) he wasn't overmatched. Third, Parmalee's best shot at having anything like comparable defensive value to Myers is to hope that Myers loses a foot after being struck by a meteorite. But hey, it's baseball, and Parmalee could end up playing playing in All Star games that Wil Myers tries not to watch on the big screen TV while tending bar in his late 20's. Seems unlikely, though.
  4. LaBombo
    Yeah, what a stroke of luck for rookie GM Theo Epstein, finding dusty, forgotten, long-time Red Sock David Ortiz rotting away in a broom closet in the bowels of Fenway Park a couple of months after taking over. Oh, wait, Epstein signed him after Ryan decided he had no use for a designated hitter who could actually hit. But having All Stars like Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, and Clay Buchholz all make the team as walk-ons who just sort of showed up at spring training they way they did, Theo totally lucked out with those guys. Hmmm. Come to think of it, he picked all of them in the first or second round of the amateur draft. Sorry, totally meant to play along in your game of 'portray widely respected GM as lucky rube', but my examples weren't very good.
  5. LaBombo
    Which post were you responding to? The post asking why Ryan seems to be able to evaluate hitters but not pitchers. The polite answer is that Ryan has more trouble evaluating pitchers than he does hitters because everyone has more trouble evaluating pitchers than hitters. A couple of impolite alternatives... Ryan is the anti-empirical GM equivalent of a witch doctor, disdaining all but the most basic and outdated statistical analysis in favor of the insight provided by the same scouting sages who helped the Twins decide to give long-term deals to Tsyoshi Nishioka and Nick Blackburn. I don't believe that's true, but it would explain a great deal. Another possibility is that Ryan is engaged in a long-range strategy involving a kind of contrarian, Moneyball 2.0 campaign to identify undervalued assets like strikeout-less pitchers and collect them at bargain prices. And maybe we won't see the shocking genius of it until it all comes together in the end, like Brad Pitt finding (spoiler alert!) his wife's head in the box at the end of the movie 'Se7en'.
  6. LaBombo
    'Everyone in this thread is now for having read your post'.... The absurdity of comparing fellow...what, bipeds, I guess?... Wil Myers and Chris Parmalee aside, I think the league should seriously consider contracting the Royals if they give up a top 10 prospect for a pitcher is about to 1) turn 29, 2) cost $11 million, and 3) try to bounce back from his worst season (4.82 ERA) and two straight years of increasing ERA, xFIP, etc, and declining strikeout rate.
  7. LaBombo
    Signing guys like Clement is a task performed by every organization, every off season. More of an administrative task than a really serious personnel undertaking. Like replacing an under-performing tofutti concession stand with a deep fried butter-on-a-stick vendor, and about as relevant to the long-term on-field performance of the major league club.
  8. LaBombo
    Let's hope that the Twins can find some of that random division-winning good luck that's totally unrelated to having a half-dozen All Star-caliber players on the roster.
  9. LaBombo
    Haven't you heard? Money isn't an issue! The Twins braintrust said so, meaning that it must be true. So what if Sanchez might be looking for 5 years/$70 million now that the Royals have overpaid for Guthrie? Ryan just pays more to get him, without affecting what he can spend on other players. Problem solved!
  10. LaBombo
    It may be too much to expect the Twins to field a better 4th starter than Guthrie, whose FIPs and xFIPS generally sit in the mid to high 4's. But it's not too much to expect them to do it for a whole lot less than 3 years/$25 million. So yes, good riddance, and a relief that the Twins CAN'T sign him now. I'd rather watch Deduno hit the mascot twice a game than see 25 million go up in smoke with a mediocrity like Guthrie.
  11. LaBombo
    If it turns out that the cornerstone of Terry Ryan's plan to have the Twins contend in 2013 involves crossing his fingers and hoping that two guys who NEVER get hurt...get hurt, well, then I would hope that even the loyal-to-the-point-of-idiocy Pohlads would show him the door, and punch him in the arm really, really hard on the way out. And I'm a little hazy on your definition of "solid" players. To me that means guys who are average or a little better. Either the word has a vastly different meaning to you, or you're unaware of the fact that Fielder, Jackson, Avila, Scherzer, and Fister are All-Star caliber players. And Hunter and Martinez may not be All Stars anymore, but they're clearly still well above average. Current Twins staff 'ace' Scott Diamond would have to battle for the 5th spot in a Sanchez-less Tigers rotation, or toss long relief if they bring Anibal back. They left a reliever (Villarreal) off their postseason roster who could probably beat out Burton for the setup role if he were a Twin. It's likely that the Twins will add a couple of starting pitchers in the offseason, and maybe a warm body in the middle infield or bullpen. They'll probably be better next year than they were this year or last. But if you seriously think that the Twins will contend for the division title by adding Joe Blanton, Jeremy Guthrie, and a big bag of Verlander and Cabrera voodoo dolls...well, good luck with that.
  12. LaBombo
    Agreed. And maybe the clubhouse problem will not be Drew killing the team, but Gardenhire killing Drew, or the other way around. Either way, the board will have something to talk about instead of how to avoid 100 losses and which five 2014 free agents will lead us to the promised land...
  13. LaBombo
    Not your fault; it's all pretty convoluted at this point! And I understand intangible advantages of the hypothetical 85 win bar...attendance/revenue, ability to attract free agents looking to play for a winner, etc. And if the Twins can squeeze out 85 wins without parting company with their best prospects, have at it. Still looks like an uphill battle to me for 2013, though. But I'll still be pulling for them, even while Gardenhire has me pulling my hair out.
  14. LaBombo
    gunnarthor- Come for the Baker signing discussion, stay for the Theo Epstein debate! We're not going to see eye to eye on Epstein, I think. You made some good points, as have others, about payroll and existing talent in Boston. But I still see a guy who GM'ed two World Series wins while still ten years younger or more than most rookie GM's. Pretty exceptional in my book, and I don't even like the Red Sox except when they're beating the Yankees or the Black Sox. Back to Baker, sorry to see him go, but that seems spendy for such a high risk guy who figures to not even be ready until well into the season. But Epstein is probably getting more payroll to achieve faster results than Ryan will in Minnesota. As far as Baker the pitcher, I hope he can succeed enough in Chicago and elsewhere that he gives Twins fans reason to engage in yet another round of What Might Have Been. On the other hand, Lohse has done well for himself in StL, and I still don't miss that guy....
  15. LaBombo
    Ok, lets set aside the whole 'playoffs are completely random with respect to team quality as measured by regular season record' thing... 85 wins isn't going to cut it for winning the division. And we're pretty freaking far from 85 wins right now.
  16. LaBombo
    First, I'm not using 85 wins as the yardstick/milestone/divider/whatever. John is, and I'm working from that starting point. Second, my final point was that it doesn't matter if 85 win teams are just as effective at winning the World Series as teams with 90 or more wins (and no, I don't believe they are), if 85 win teams almost never make the playoffs, just like you pointed out as well. 85 wins is next to worthless with respect to making the postseason. So why shoot for 85 wins if it comes at the expense of seldom making a push for more? Because of our 'weak division', in which 85 wins captured exactly one division title in the last 10 years, and during which the Central champ averaged 93 wins? I'll take a pass on that strategy. But I agree with your final point!
  17. LaBombo
    So you know he won two in five years. And it's still "random", as it pertains to his abilities as GM? Ok. Agree to disagree. And I apologize to you and all the other posters from the bottom of my heart for calling you sunshine. I've read the Binary thread, and although I always respect John's takes on baseball, I disagreed with him and others in it. 85 wins doesn't get you $#!^, either getting to or winning in the playoffs the past 10 seasons. Going back to the point of the thread, Epstein certainly has his work cut out for him with the Cubs. But if Cubs ownership is willing to accelerate the process with more payroll for gambles like Baker, Theo may return the Cubs to respectability sooner rather than later.
  18. LaBombo
    Exactly. The Cubs didn't bring in Epstein just for a long, slow, bare-bones rebuilding project. He should have the kind of payroll flexibility that allows him to take a flyer on a guy like Baker and then, like you suggested, potentially flip him at the deadline if.
  19. LaBombo
    So payroll guarantees not only regular season wins but playoff success? Good to know; seems I've read a bunch on this site and elsewhere that was wrong about those things.
  20. LaBombo
    Actually that's two "random" World Series wins in his first five seasons as GM, sunshine. Maybe the Twins can find a lucky GM like that too someday. And if you think the AL East was a cakewalk during his best seasons, I think you're in the minority.
  21. LaBombo
    Score so far: Epstein 1, franchise curses 0. The Cubs are a tougher rebuild project than the Sox were in 2002, and nobody is saying Theo hasn't made some bad calls. What GM hasn't? But I wouldn't bet against a GM as highly regarded as Epstein.
  22. LaBombo
    Rubbish. He competed in a division where you win 95 games and cross your fingers for a wildcard berth, and won his second World Series at age 33.
  23. LaBombo
    He did sign Lackey and Crawford .... He also signed David Ortiz and Curt Schilling...and then he won two World Series titles before his 34th birthday. Ryan has one playoff series win in more years on the job than Epstein and will turn 60 next year. Yes, Epstein had more payroll at his disposal than Ryan, but he also competed in the toughest division in baseball. I know which one I'd take first in a GM expansion draft.
  24. LaBombo
    Yes, really good regular season teams fail in the playoffs, just like high payroll teams often fail in the regular season. The point that John's correlation fails to make is that 85 win teams since 2003 almost NEVER win the WS. Only one 85 win team, La Russa's 2006 Cardinals, has even appeared in the past 10 WS, let alone won it. And that team was plagued by major injuries and inflicted 194 innings of perpetual albatross Jason Marquis on itself before ditching him in the postseason.
  25. LaBombo
    Let the feverish re-writing of all the variations of "3 (4?) Easy Steps to 2013 Twins Rotation Bliss" posts begin.
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