Dantes929

I believe his value will be as a platoon/4th outfielder against left handed pitchers. I think a platoon makes sense especially a platoon that is able to play all three outfield spots as this makes for natural and valuable late inning defensive replacements as well as pinch hitting or running options. Hicks has demonstrated ability to hit major league pitching as a right handed hitter and show little evidence that he can hit major league right handers. If he does get another opportunity to be the every day guy I hope he does well. I fear that if he flops again he will be written off. He had a .410 OBP against lefties last year. .302 OBP against righties. I hope he figures it out from the left side by I think it will probably end up being a mistake to let him siwitch hit in the first place

I think they do have to make up 9 wins. Their skillset may make up 2 or 3 of these and their player progression may make up a few more. Essentially its the same take you have but the starting point is actually 9 wins. 87 Twins were 85-77 when the pyth said 79-83. They really didn't have a great bullpen, maybe a bit better than average defense and hardly a hit and run offense. The next year their rotation and bullpen was way better and they had 91 wins which is about what they should have. Royals rotation is probably not better for losing Shields and the pen will have a tough time matching 2014 so yes I think 4-5 win decrease is probably realistic rather than pessimistic and treading water is optimistic. I have no problem with being optimistic.

Interesting that every division in the American League had a winning record. American league was 26 games over .500 against the Nationals. I don't think the Central will be tougher this year as a whole but will be more competitive. I don't think KC or Detroit will be as good. Cleveland might be a bit better and the Twins and Sox should be better. Makes for a tighter race but they still have to play mostly each other and the other two divisions. I think nicksviking was pretty close except for Cleveland. I don't see the Central being 18 games below .500. Put Cleveland up there at 83-79 and you have a very tight division and if those are the numbers we are talking about then really the division is up for grabs. I think all the teams will be kind of interesting. Detroit loses their best pitcher. KC loses one of their best but defense and bullpen were huge will keep them from sinking too far. Run differential says the Twins should have won 75 and I still think the rotation and Mauer and Arcia will get them a bit better than that. In the decade of 6 division wins the Twins were often picked to finish in the 3 to 5 spots and most of those years I could easily have imagined them 5-10 of their wins going the other way.

"A perfect example of how much of a crapshoot the playoffs are nowadays" They always were Jimmer. Twins won in 87 with 85 wins. Cards won with 83 wins in 06. Giants won last year with 88. Playoffs are always a crapshoot. KC was a wild pitch away from being 0-1 last year in the playoffs rather than 11-4. Its why I always say no one knows what would have happened if Nathan had just saved one or two games against the Yanks or if the Twins had won game 163 back in 08. Anyone can get hot. once there.

Hicks has shown himself to be quite competent as a right handed batter against lefties. He has shown very little competence facing right handed pitching. Platoon and utility has value and odds are that is how he will contribute if he is to stay in the league. I would love if he proved me wrong but batting .275 in AAA for a month or two from the left side is not going to prove anything in terms of his ability to handle big league pitching from that side. Of course first he has to bat .275 from the left side in AAA which is a coin flip. Like I said, I hope he proves me wrong. I still think, without being able to prove, that if he had stuck batting righty from the get go we would not be having this discussion and would have been fine with him as full time center fielder til Buxton arrives.

I value OBP a great deal and remind folks that Hicks was better than Revere in this category but lets break it down even further. The .341 OBP is made up of .410 from the right side and .302 from the left side. This screams platoon so the idea of plan B to be sending down Hicks and platooning Schaefer with some one else makes no sense to me whatsoever. My guess is that if he starts the season in center batting lefty will be his downfall. If he starts in AAA he will probably either not earn promotion because of his batting lefty or eventually he will earn the promotion with a hot bat for a month and then fail in the Bigs because of his left side batting. Then everyone gives up on him which leads to losing what is likely his true value which is platooning against lefties batting righty. IMO if they send him down they should ORDER him to bat right handed all the time which is what they should have done in the first place This is his best chance at success as a full time starter but I get that it might be hard to make that adjustment. This is why the best option, and its actually a very good option is to platoon Schaeffer and Hicks. This is even a very viable and valuable option for left field for when Buxton comes up and Hunter is gone in case Rosario doesn't make good. The non starter has utility as late inning defensive replacement for Arcia.

Jimmers I look at baseball reference and don't see wRC+ stats for minor leaguers.. I see Vargas 2014 year in the minors was close to his career in the minors in BA and OPS which was .288 and .854. This is quite a bit better than his year with the Twins which was .274 and .772. Doesn't seem that far fetched to expect that he can continue to do slightly worse than his minor league numbers in the majors. The pitching is better but he should be getting better with more at bats as well. He was lumped with D Santana as guys that are likely to regress but I just don't see it in Vargas. Santana on the other hand had way better results in the majors than he did in the minors in both BA and OPS. I hope he can keep it up but tend to believe the minor league numbers more than the major league numbers. Valencia comes to mind. Different players but I don't expect those same lines from Santana in 2015. If he just plays good D and gives us .274 BA and .772 OPS I would be thrilled.

We were 14-18 against the AL East and 36-40 against the Central so the big demon switched from the right coast to the left coast and we did not beat up on the Central. Not just the AL West but San Fran and La as well. California was not kind to us.. .

Vargas should not regress much if at all. His stat lines are below what he did in the minors. He got off to a fast start which many remember but then tailed off. I would expect him to have about the same stats lines if he went a whole year batting.

If everything goes right you can start printing WS tickets right now. Of course not everything has gone right for any team in the history of the game. I remember in the final few weeks of 2006 all the experts were asked what had to happen for the Twins to catch the Tigers and every one of them said it was absolutely essential that Santana run the table and win every game he pitched. Santana lost 2 our of his 3 starts but the twins went 13-7. In 2008 we were coming off a losing season and lost by far our best pitcher and our best outfielder but got to game 163 by having enough guys step up at other positions and that is what has to happen here. If we regress at 3 or 4 spots but improve, not even dramatically but just improve, 8 other spots it can make all the difference. On paper we just need more things to go right than the other teams. Our rotation will be Hughes, Santana, Nolasco and Gibson with at least 3 very viable candidates for the 5th spot. In a good way I am not so sure that May, Meyer, and Milone can't outpitch Santana, Nolasco and Gibson so one of the keys from my viewpoint is that we have the best guys pitching for most of the time. No way to really measure this but it just feels like we can't wait til August to see how things shake out.

Jimmer, I really dislike our outfield defense. I don't like Arcia in the outfield but I think he is going to mash so do not want him moved. I didn't love the Hunter acquisition but believe he will be better both offensively and defensively than Willingham so was ok that while not good there we are still better. I have been endorsing the platoon of Schaefer and Hicks because it makes sense but if we got an elite defensive centerfielder that doesn't drop off from those two offensively as Doc suggests until Buxton arrives I am all for it. I agree with Brock that the rotation was the main disease but have seen too many big innings that could have been avoided by better outfield defense so my best analogy is this. I equate the Twins pitching last year to anemia and our outfield defense is the medical equivalent of treating that disease with blood letting or applying leaches. It didn't cause the anemia but it definitely made it worse. Arrival of Buxton and Rosario when Hunter moves on will be the transfusion that will cure many of our ills.

This is actually the ideal situation for a platoon since both can serve as late inning replacement for Hunter or Arcia. You need a 4th outfielder anyway. Its not like Leius and Pags sharing time at 3rd with just a little utility from Leius. Who knows how it all shakes out. Maybe we will see an outfield of Schaeffer, Hicks and Santana at some point if Hunter or Arcia get hurt.

I don't know why they didn't put Hunter in left and leave Arcia in right. I agree that they should be slightly better just in that Hunter is a better defensive outfielder than Willingham. We had Nunez out there a bit as well and he was brutal. We also did not have Hicks or Schaefer for the whole year and having them both together as a platoon provides opportunity to play them both in the late innings. I look forward to having a top notch outfield defense at some point and value it greatly. For all the deficiencies this year it probably won't be the difference between contending and not contending.

Larry Hisle was 40 points below Mack in OPS, did not play as good defense, did not play on a world champion and did not have his best season cut short by strike.. Smalley has a decent resume at shortstop, longevity, all star, world champion. Castino was my favorite player at the time but falls short in a lot of categories. I really thought Wynegar had better stats. Two all star games helps. Again, Mack was won of the best in the game for 5 years. I prefer that to decent for 10 years.

Their run scored/ given up differential indicates they should have been a 75 win team in 2014. Santana regresses, Mauer rebounds. The perception is that Vargas outperformed expectations also but his final numbers came in about what I would expect for a season. I know we say the rotation has to be better every year but it will come true eventually. I don't make predictions. I think the Twins are capable of contending. They are also capable of pulling up the rear. I always like the underdog which is why I have enjoyed being a Twins fan the last dozen years.

Ok Stringer. What you said makes sense. No doubt the game was different. However Mack was there 5 years which did include a WS win and was cut short in his best season through no fault of his own. Yes, it was the start of the steroids era and Mack's OPS was still better than Hrbek, Puckett, Knoblach and Morneau. It was WAY better than Tovars or Allisons. I agree personality had a lot to do with it. Just not sure it should. I really would not object to Tovar being in. I saw him play and he was one of my favorites. I don't really think he was underappreciated . Just not sure he was quite good enough.

I would never give up on a season before it starts and this group has some potential. You can expect young guys to stagnate or get hurt or get worse but the reverse could be true. You can expect Mauer to keep batting .270 and you may be right but it shouldn't be too unreasonable for him to bounce back. You can expect the rotation to all have bad years but why would you at this point? I can certainly imagine this team contending. Doestn't mean they will. Its up to the players to have good seasons. Its baseball. Outfield defense looks like the biggest weakness to me but more because of the corners than because of CF. Doc please tell me what center fielder you would want to come in that can out.perform the platoon of Schaefer and Hicks. Seriously, Hicks has very good stats against lefties and Schaefer is decent against righties. Its true that Hicks is horrible from the left side and Schaefer cannot hit lefties but why even consider this when you can mostly avoid putting them in those positions?

Lol glunn. I am old enough to have seen Tovar play and I liked him a lot. He just seemed to have a lot of energy and magnetism. You know, I just threw Shane Mack out there for discussion purposes because I always thought he was underrated and under appreciated. Then I started looking at stats and realized he was really under appreciated and grossly underrated.. His OPS as a Twins was better than Puckett', better than Hrbek, better than Oliva, better than Allison, better than Carew,better than Battey, better than Gaetti, better than Gagne. That's right! In 5 seasons for the Twins Mack had a better OPS than every Twin in the Twins HOF except for Killebrew. He also had a better OPS than Morneau. As far as I can tell, with a minimum of 5 seasons he trailed only Killebrew and Mauer in the history of the franchise. He was having a monster season in 1994 that was cut short by the strike and then Japan offered him a ton of money and he went with it. Hardly his fault the players and owners got greedy.

How is he more deserving? He played 8 seasons to Macks 5 but Mack's stats are way better and was key element to WS championship. Mack OPS .854 to Tovar's .714. Again, I was a big fan of Tovar's but playing all the different positions is just a novlety. Explain how Tovar was better than Mack. I am willing to be convinced.

I don't know. I really liked Tovar but most of his time was spent in the outfield and I don't know that that much emphasis should be placed on versatility. Shane Mack was a much better player and should go in before Tovar and definitely before Gladden.

I believe the concussion affected him as did the move to 1st base and expectations that go along with it. To me its kind of like the LNP syndrome. When Punto was the utility infielder in 2006 he had a great year just gong where they needed him which just happened to be mostly 3rd base. No extra pressure. He just did what he did best and the fact they needed him at 3rd base was just happenstance. In 2007 the twins name him their 3rd baseman and some fans don't like it because they think a power guy should be there. He takes that to heart and starts swinging for the fences with horrible results.. Just my opinion but when Punto just tried to make contact he was a .280 hitter. When he tried to hit for power he hit .180 and without power and he tried to hit for power way too often. Same thing with Mauer. He's at first base now, he should be stronger without having to catch all the time so he starts swinging harder and earlier trying to pull the ball for power. Its just not him. 2nd half he goes back to his old ways and goes the opposite way and teams shifted to the left and pitched so he would have to hit to the shift. He got a bit frustrated when he would sting the ball a couple times only to make outs because of the shift but to me this is ideal. He has always appeared to make better contact hitting middle out pitches to center or left of center. Who cares if the shift catches more of them?. That should be more than offset by hitting the ball solidly more often. I have never cared if Mauer hit a lot of home runs. Give me an .880 OPS and you won't hear a peep from me if he doesn't hit a home run all year.

They aren't high on a Mauer bounceback season. Any particular reason for this cuz I would bet the bank on it.

May should be the frontrunner because out of the whole pack he had the best 2014 and I am not talking about the September call up at all. I am talking about the whole year.. That does not mean he should be given the job but the stats are not that important since Spring Training is a lot about training. If he has a 6 ERA but the coaches like what they see in terms of command and stuff that is ok with me if he goes North or if he has a 4 ERA and Meyer has a 3.5 ERA the edge should still go to May because the regular season should be weighted that heavily and ST should have some weight but not as much. Live action for the first time in 5 months,, variable quality of opponents, working on weak pitches or command of the fastball make a small sample size count even less than normal. Also, I think Pelfrey should be last on the depth charts going into spring training but should not be written off. He has had long stretches of success and actually has good stuff. Baseball is great for giving 2nd chances for people to succeed. I hope he never gets the chance because everyone ahead of him thrives but if it does get to him he probably wouldn't be the worst #5 in baseball.

dxpavelka, I mostly agree with you except about the part about March. Every year there are guys that are horrible in March that tighten things up for the regular season. Every year there are also guys that look like Ted Williams in March that can't hit there weight in May. 2014 performance should have the most weight. May might be working on his fastball command to the exclusion of everything else and have an inflated ERA as a result of giving up hits and home runs. Of course if he is working on his fastball command but still walking a to of guys then you reconsider. May should be the frontrunner and if by late March he is throwing hard with a sharp curveball and good control he should be the guy. As you pointed out, some one will falter giving other guys chances. If no one does falter then that is good in and of itself..

I still say his AL ERA of below 4 in the AL should trump Nolasco's 4.5 NL ERA. Even with a slow start he was 6-3 with a 3.55 ERA with the A's. That can't be all due to defense and ballpark. A's were loaded and decided to go get Jeff Samardzija. I don't know why Milone did so poorly once demoted but that likely decreased his trade value. Was Milone hurt or simply upset by the demotion? Maybe he isn't that good and been aided by park and defense but his career AL ERA is still better than Hughes, Gibson, Nolasco and Santana so putting him 7th in the depth department seems a tad unfair. I am not one of those that care whether he throws 99 or 89.