Dantes929

"Suzuki has no incentive to sign an extension when the market is ripe (i.e. shortage of FA catchers) for him to make a killing this off season. Are the Twins known as a team that outbids and overpays in years and dollars for a player? I don't think so. Get something while you can. If the Twins are serious about wanting him back they can overpay for him in the off season." Actually he has a great incentive to sign an extension. Does he himself think he is a 300 hitter? He has everything to lose by waiting. A half season of his career average of .250 or less will put him right back where he was at the beginning of this year in terms of bargaining power. Twins should trade him if they can get something good He will probably regress to his career averages and the Twins can get him for 3 or 4 mil this off season if they want him. If we can't get something good then let him play it out and maybe resign him in the offseason. This is he order of best results. 1. Sell high and resign him for reasonable price when he goes back to being a .250 hitter with average defense. 2. Sell high and not resign him. 3. Let him play out the year and have a decent catcher working with the pitchers for the rest of the year and then resign him when he regresses to the norm. (Even at his career average he is a decent player, just not great) . Let him play the season out and do not resign him. We have already gotten our money's worth out of him. 4. Keep him. He actually does continue to play well and we pay the same then as we would now for more years with him. This is probably buying high but at least with more data to support it 5. Extend his contract at a premium based on his all star 1st half. In other words selling him high is best outcome. Buying him high is worst outcome which is what we would be doing by extending his contract at this point.

Yet, so many posters on here appear to be jealous of East coast fans as if incendiary and harsh is something to aspire to. Ok, so Yankee fans would boo Mauer and criticize him more on talk shows. To some fans here it means they hold him more accountable as if that will make him try harder or perform better. I haven't liked some of the moves that Twins have made in the last 6 years but I look at the long term and I like to build from within. 2011 could be excused because of all the injuries but it also revealed a rot in the minor league system and to me 2012 was the low point. Everything this year except the injuries to Buxton and Sano point to a brighter future. The current crop of prospects are exciting but if they fail I will look forward to the next batch. We had a great 9 year run just a short time ago. A few years down can be digested if it results in another good run.

You are ridiculing something that has never been suggested. His first start will be with Rochester on Thursday. The speculation is whether they would call him up for his 2nd start. Maybe just as silly but lets see how he does with Rochester in his 1st start. It wasn't an arm injury and I assume he has been throwing but still would be his first start in about 3 weeks.

Law is like most experts in that he is right half the time which is better than the amateurs who are wrong half the time.

A few more observations. The league average for quality starts is .50. Gibson is at .56. Hughes is only at .61 and for the Correia detractors he is at .56 also which is where he was last year. In other words, not ace material but better than average. I would imagine based on quality starts it puts him at least as a #3 pitcher. Gibson has a 6 ERA with more than 5 days rest but looks like he is at his best with exactly 5 days off and there seems to be a consensus with announcers that you don't want sinkerballers to have too much rest so this may be one of the significant factors. His ERA is 21 at domed stadiums and he pitches better in the daytime.

Roy Smalley made a very interesting comment about hitting in the clutch with a guy on 3rd and less than two outs. He said you should time your swing for a fastball over the plate or the outside corner and think hit up the middle or to the opposite field. That way you are ready for outside stuff and breaking balls and the only pitch you are susceptible to are good inside fastballs. If you are ready to pound on inside fastballs you are going to make outs on so many more pitches. Sure enough Dozier was a little slow on an inside fastball that he might normally have hit out of the park but still got the run in from 3rd which was the main goal. Good piece of hitting and interesting approach. I have seen way too many strikeouts the last few years from guys trying to pull it out of the park when a base hit, sac fly or even grounder to a middle infielder was all that was needed.

9 ERA for Berrios. What is he still doing in AA? Ok, just kidding but after giving up 4 homers in 100 innings he gave up 2 in 5 innings. Small sample so who cares but I read that he throws hard and up in the zone so strikeouts, fly balls and home runs are in his future if he continues this. Has worked ok for other pitchers but is that who he is or does he need to work on getting the ball down in the zone to be successful? What is it he needs to work on at this level?

I have no problem with the pace of putting him back in play but still laugh a little at this kind of stuff. He went from 0-2 innings to 7 innings and probably play 9 his next time out. I assume he has had a lot of batting practice along with live pitching sessions so they know his wrists are fine. Cautious says don't slide head first for a while either on the bases or in the outfield. Maybe one game of 2 at bats to see how it feels but then caution doesn't really apply anymore as far as I can see in this situation.

"I saw Hicks being sent down as what was best for Hicks -- not necessarily what was best for the team." Well put. As I have pointed out before Hicks has an OBP better than Revere or Span this year and those are the guys fans were moaning about losing. His OBP plays very well from the 9 spot but it is still hard to justify a .200 batting average. I still kind of wish he had stuck with just right handed hitting though.

9-1 with a 1.92 ERA deserves a shot so I disagree with the travesty part, rebuild or not. Strikeouts are not indicative of dominance, but of raw stuff. Liam Henckriks had better stats with much less stuff which tells me Meyer is a little rough around the edges. I have also made the consistency argument on behalf of Meyer and May but honestly, they should consistently dominate AAA as reflected in ERA before going to the next level. If you want to go with WHIP then May should be next and Meyer is probably close enough to Johnson to give him the nod but Pino was exceptional and if he didn't earn the promotion then no one has.

May sound silly but I always thought the home run derby and the all star game was part of the reason for Morneau's decline in 2008 especially given the fact that he played 163 games that year. He was just worn out by September which cost us a playoff spot and an MVP trophy for Justin.

I don't think things are that bleak unless you really thought the Twins would contend this year. Bleak was the 2nd half of 2011 when guys were dropping like flies and we were replacing them with guys that were doing poorly in the minors so all jokes aside we truly did end with a poor AAA team. Now we are almost wanting guys to get hurt so we can see the guys busting at the seams in the minors get their chance. The biggest position hole was shortstop and now we have a great choice of Nunez, Escobar, Santana and Polanco. Because of this log jam I kind of want a 2015 outfield of Rosario, Buxton and Santana with Polanco at short. I haven't given up on Arcia, Hicks and Parmalee and I have gone from anti Plouffe to pro Plouffe so if Sano develops that will also complicate things but in a good way. Vargas is also doing great and Pinto having a good stretch in AAA. I like building through the system and the system looks great.

I think mostly we have learned that the Twins shouldn't sign 4-4.5ERA National Leaguers. I always considered them to be stopgap anyway. Saying neither May nor Meyer are major league ready is just opinion. I am guessing when they are on they can do nearly as well as they have in the minors but it is just a guess and we won't know til they get up here. Viola wasn't great right off the bat. They need to eventually either succeed or take their lumps at the top level. Somewhat encouraging is that all the starters but Nolasco are below 5 in ERA which wasn't the case a year ago. Replace him with Deduno and all of them will be below 5.00. Not great bu significant progress.

Let him dominate AA first. Reminds me of the Steve Martin bit. "You can make a million dollars and not pay taxes. Ok, first, make a million dollars....."

"The Twins had fantastic pivot man in Bobby Randall as Carew’s first replacement at second, but that .257 career average wasn’t quite Carew’s .334 in 12 years in Minnesota, now was it?" But the guys Carew replaced at first were John Briggs and Tom Kelly. Their combined average of around .200 was much farther removed from Carew's .334. Better defense at 2nd base and the offense replaced .200 average with Randall's .257. Pretty logical move.

I think the same thing but then look it up on baseball reference and see he is hitting .226 for New Britain. Doesn't seem to jive.

"His ceiling is that of someone who could potentially be a top-of-the-rotation starter but saddling anyone at 16 with that label is irresponsible." That kind of sentence makes me chuckle. Thanks for being responsible and not labeling him a top-of-the rotation-starter by using the qualifiers "potentially and ceiling". Not singling you out Jeremy. Prospect writers want to extol the talent but then caution since only 1 in 20 (pure guess) such prospects even get to the majors. I just laugh at the double speak sometimes.

Not arguing too much with the premise but if Mauer isn't the best player who is? Suzuki and Dozier have been better but I am guessing by season end it will be Mauer. Even if he is top 60 that is still valuable. I don't care how much he makes. I never expected he would be worth the contract. That contract was more PR based and half of it should be written off to marketing and I said so at the time. So what? He's still a good hitter. The fact that he hasn't met expectations of fans is more of a fan problem than Mauer's. Its like when fans got so mad at Liriano for not being the ace he was in 2006. He was still a worthwhile pitcher, even thought streaky, that had more quality starts than 3 others in the rotation but fans wanted him gone because he didn't fit their definition of an ace. Mauer not performing to your expectations is still probably going to hit .300 with an OPS north of .800 which is still good.

While we were scoring a lot of runs with Mauer slumping I feared the day that Mauer started hitting and everyone else slumped. Its a team game and Mauer hitting well makes up for one or two guys reverting to form but not several guys.

As much as I want to see May pitch I also think Pino deserved more of a shot. 1-1 with one quality start in the bigs after 9-1 in the minors. Yes, he may be this year's Albers or Walters or whoever but everyone has a clunker now and then and it did come against one of the best offenses in the league. I would have liked to see him start at least one more. I think he deserved it.

I've said it before but Arcia's slump reminds me of a couple of Cuddyer's. He would be so anxious to hit the pitchers could often get him out without throwing a single strike. The more aggressive he got the farther out of the zone the pitchers would throw it. He got out of the slumps by accepting the walks. He had one three day weekend where he had an absurdly high number of walks. Pitchers realized they had to pitch to him and he started getting the pitches he wanted. Just guessing that if Arcia didn't swing at a pitch for an entire game he would walk twice. Do that a couple games and be less pull happy and he will be back on track. He's got a beautiful swing that will probably get more homers not trying to hit it out of the park than when he does try to hit it out of the park.

"Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez in particular. Gomez, especially, I don’t think would have become the player he is if he had stayed in Minnesota," Don't think I buy it. Young used all fields in 2010 and had his career year. Moved to Target and tried pulling the ball and failed. Gomez had two miserable years with Milwaukee before figuring it out. The misconception is that the Twins somehow throttled his swing while he was here. This is absurd. Think back to that year. If anything he swung harder then than he does now. He often fell over from swinging so hard to the extent it was often comical. Thome swung hard, Morneau swung hard, Cuddyer swung hard, Kubel swung hard. The ones that slumped did so when they chased pitches (lacked discipline) or tried too hard to pull the ball. If the Twins did actually teach players to go to the opposite field that is one thing. If they taught them to go with the pitch that is another. Arcia is proof that you can't just go up there with no discipline and trying to pull the ball. Gomez probably would have been just successful with Mn and maybe more so and maybe sooner.

A lot of clamoring for May to join the Twins rotation but he doesn't make the Futures game. What's up with that?

."guys like Trevor May have thrown out their arms in the minors--he had 677 iniings in the minors before this year started. If you are good get brought up and find out. . Viola 156 minor league innings, Blyleven 194 minor league innings. Top Twin hitting prospects have this many ABs before this season started. . . Santana 2300, Rosario 1367, Vargas 1300, Sano 1372. . even Buxton has had more than Harper did." As pointed out earlier May never deserved a shot before this year based on performance and will probably be the next in line for an opportunity. Santana is in the bigs, Rosario and Sano and Buxton would all be making their debuts this year but for injuries. They all had defensive issues to work on as well. I am hoping Vargas gets a chance soon if he continues to rake.

"I think with Harper, the Nats know he will leave in free agency shortly so they wanted to get him up and get him with the big club as long as they could." Does this come into play? Does he get more time with the major league team if he is brought up earlier? I thought it was the same regardless of when he comes up which argues for getting them as polished as possible before bringing them up since you want them at their prime while under team control.