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Dantes929

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Everything posted by Dantes929

  1. Dantes929
    All I wished for this team in April was meaningful games in September. Remember a week ago when we won 4 straight in Texas? Another week from now will be another story. People seem to think our past WS or playoff seasons were just a smooth steady rise to first place. It was never that way. 87 team was up 5 games on August 17th and tied on August 28th. Not saying in any way or form that this team will follow 87's path but it would be cool if TD existed back then and be able to see the fan's comments on August 28th of that year. Of course its more fun when your team is coming back from way down rather than seeing a lead shrinking. This is fun too though.
  2. Dantes929
    I wouldn't go this far unless you think Buxton's defense is worth the at least extra run the staff has given up in the last long stretch. I also agree with Ashbury that any extra pitcher or two would be coming in for Perez ,who won his last start, not for Berrios who has not been good at all in August. Odorizzi and Pineda have been just fine. I agree Berrios needs a little time off and a reset or needs to figure out along with the pitching coach what adjustment is needed. I defended Berrios when the Twins lost 8 of his 11 starts in one stretch because it was easy to defend a stretch where he had an ERA well below 3. His August has an ERA well above 8. I could make a case that just replacing Smeltzer for Berrios at the trade deadline would have given us two more wins. 4 games isn't an anomoly.
  3. Dantes929
    No. Most definitely did not do it on his own. If one player could do it on their own how do you explain 8 losing seasons out of 12? All with about half a dozen other Twins HOFers by his side. Puckett was awesome and deserves accolades but he was MVP of neither WS. So much is happenstance. Yes, the Twins had to win one of two divisions but they did it in 87 with a record that Joe's teams surpassed 5 times. Of course I can't win any kind of argument on playoff success but if that is how you judge players then Bucky Dent is probably better than Puckett. But he ain't. Anyway, I think Mauer was great but Puckett was better. Puckett was great but Harmon was probably better. A lot of this is apples and oranges. Different stats, different eras and WAR is not definitive.
  4. Dantes929
    So, its all hindsight then right? People think they thought Morris was a wonderful signing back in the day but at the time I would say he was the definition of veteran retread. The kind of signing that has been complained about over the years. He was coming off a two year record of 21-32 with a 4.7 ERA and had just turned 36. Thome and Cruz were both at ages that washed up veteran could have easily been applied to their prospective first year with the Twins. Same with Molitor. Ronell White was actually a great signing. Coming off a very good age 32 season he appeared to be exactly what the Twins needed at the time. In other words without the advantage of hindsight, White should absolutely have been in the discussion.
  5. Dantes929
    Oliva probably replaces Johan on my Mount Rushmore. Interesting comment about winning. Twins had winning records in 8 of Joe's 15 seasons and made the playoffs 5 times. Pucket was on 4 winning teams in 12 years and made the playoffs twice. Harmon played 25 seasons and was on 8 winning teams and made the playoffs 3 times. A lot of losing going on in most of Kirby and Harmon's years also.
  6. Dantes929
    I was mostly trying to be funny. I disagree that pay should be included in any calculation. I don;t care how much they make. If price per WAR were a factor you might as well just eliminate any veteran over 6 years from consideration. Closest I can come with your ice cream example is would you rather have Kemps, Edie's, Haagen Daaz, etc. Period. Most valuable asset would be a different discussion and would maybe bring Aj for Nathan, Liriano and Boof or Viola for Aguillera, Tapani into play. A different award could be most best return of WAR for the money. MVP should just be whose production for the current year would you most like to have on your team. If its close then players on competitive teams should be considered. If a guy has 20 homers and 6 of them are walk off that should be considered. If another guy has 20 homers and they all came with plus or minus 5 runs that could be considered also. In other words mostly stat driven but situational consideration. Situational meaning on the field situations not compensation or draft considerations. Thats just IMO.
  7. Dantes929
    Ok, I concede. Lets call it the NIAMSOWRTTPCOEHHODOBRHVHIITCSOTAPFWTMRTTTSH Not In A Macro Economic Sense Or With Regard To The Player's Contract Or Effect He Has on Draft Order But Rather How Valuable He Is In The Current Season On The Actual Playing Field Without Too Much Regard To The Talent Surrounding Him award Or MVP for short.
  8. Dantes929
    Sorry. Not buying it. No team is going to say we can beat the Angels no matter what Trout does. They are going to say our odds of beating the Angels go up significantly if we pitch around Trout and make the others beat us.. At least the smart ones do. Twins should have pitched around Abreu this series. If they had they might have won 2 of 3 instead of losing. On the other hand, teams would have a tougher time pitching around Trout if he was surrounded by guys that can hit. He leads the major leagues in walks. That doesn't tell me they are going after him. The only reason to pitch to him ever is that when they don't walk him he makes outs 70% of the time.
  9. Dantes929
    Exactly. Forget salary, age and future seasons. Would you trade what Trout has produced for what Cruz has produced? Would you trade Cruz for Trout for just the rest of the season? I would in a heartbeat. Would you do that if you thought your Player was Most Valuable? While we are on the subject lets not just make it a foregone conclusion that Cruz is even the most valuable on the Twins. Statistically Polanco is a 4.9 WAR per BR. Cruz and Kepler are both at 3.7. Those are my top 3 and I am leaning toward Kepler.
  10. Dantes929
    Making an argument for anyone but Trout is like giving MVP awards to anyone but Jordan in his prime. Was Malone best player or most valuable? No, regardless of which team he was on.
  11. Dantes929
    .321 avg. 34 homers and 130 RBI. Morneau was the best player in the league that year.
  12. Dantes929
    I think its just one of those games where the blame can be spread out pretty evenly. Offense, starter, relief, defense, base running. I had a bad feeling the game might have turned in the first inning when Rosario hit the rocket that the 2nd baseman made a great play on. Some days it might have still been enough to beat some teams but playing well enough to beat most teams is the standard they need to play up to. I'm just not so sure about the clutch hitting part. I get what you are saying but are you expecting them to have more than 15 hits and more than 4 extra base hits or do you think it is in their control when they get those hits.?
  13. Dantes929
    Along those lines, I thought Smalley was spot on in a lot of his commentary last night. He said he wouldn't give Abreu anything good to hit with 1st base open and Gibson grooved the first pitch. The next guy got on with an error by Arraiz but still. That pitch pretty much cost the game and it was one Smalley had just cautioned against.
  14. Dantes929
    I was already thinking along the same lines. My math says every team pretty much goes with a 5 man rotation. 15 teams times 5 pitchers means 75 starting rotation spots. His ERA is slightly better than league average but worse than the Twins ERA which is still somehow in the American League top 5. Given how they have been for the last month I am surprised that the Twins are still 5th best in the AL in run prevention. Better than the Yankees. Anyway, we are defending Gibson but just against unfairness. I had much higher expectations for him than what we have seen so far this year.
  15. Dantes929
    His walk rate in the minors has been a very respectable 2.7. I care more about run prevention and he has been very good at that. I have been on his bandwagon for a while now. I really hope he lives up to the hype keeping in mind every one gives up runs..
  16. Dantes929
    If we had lost close I was gonna be really mad at Cave. Nice lead and no outs in the 2nd and he misses the cutoff by a mile (the runner wasn't going but even if). The batter goes to 2nd on the overthrow. Next guy strikes out, then Chu grounds into what would have been an inning ending double play if Cave had hit the cutoff but instead the ground out scores a run and then Santana hits a 2 run homer. I get kind of disgusted when high school kids miss cutoffs unnecessarily but no where near as much when the pros do it. Sano's error was questionable. Cave's was all upstairs. .... By the by does it seem to anyone else that every former Twin hits like Josh Hamilton when facing the Twins? Same with the pitchers.
  17. Dantes929
    "The Twins hot start this year coincided with Jorge Polanco's. Since Polanco has fallen back to earth the Twins once "insurmountable lead" has turned a division front runner into a division contender." The hot start coincided with every one on the team being hot including the pitchers with the exception of Gonzalez.
  18. Dantes929
    According to baseball reference his 1st inning ERA is 4.94. 13 earned runs in almost 24 innings. Powered largely by giving up 5 runs in the 1st inning in his 2nd start of the year. His 6th inning ERA is 4.26. Pretty sure your stat didn't include last night's game. In his career the 6th and 7th innings haven't been very good. Of course in last night's game I thought he should have been pulled a batter sooner and might have avoided those two runs. Not just hindsight. I thought it was a key moment in the game and that Rogers could have gotten him and then pitch one more inning. Thanks to Schoop it wasn't disastrous.
  19. Dantes929
    I told my wife in the 6th that Rogers needed to come in to face Mazara. Partly cuz Odorizzi was at the end of his usual stint and also because Smalley said Odorizzi's outing was fantastic only allowing 1 run in 6 innings. Havven't he and Dick every heard of jinxes. Or about counting chickens before they hatch? Really glad we came back to win that one.
  20. Dantes929
    On pace for 44 homers. Could make a fair case for team MVP. Kind of interested to hear what you think exploding would look like.
  21. Dantes929
    If the pitcher admitted it I would say throwing a ball at someone at 93 mph should result in assault charges. Only slightly kidding here. At a minimum the pitcher should have been kicked out of the game. No, my opinion wouldn't change at all if it were a Twins pitcher. Being mad at someone for swinging at a 3-0 is so asinine it is mind boggling. Not quite as ridiculous as CC throwing at someone cuz they try bunting for a base hit but it is in the same ballpark. I don't think too many people agreed with Dozier in some of his rants in the past about unwritten rules. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23005962/brian-dozier-take-baseball-unwritten-rules-silly-brilliant-same
  22. Dantes929
    Easy solution. Get Joe out of retirement to platoon with Cron and as late inning defensive replacement. Career .868 OPS against right handers. Cron career .818 against lefties.
  23. Dantes929
    I don't think it changes anything all that much. I think platooning makes a great deal of sense. If you have 7 players that either switch hit or have good splits from both sides, having a platoon at a couple spots makes sense cuz some guys just hit lefties or righties way better. A 3 or 4 player bench allows you to platoon a couple guys with guys like the Turtle or Adrianza able to cover any late inning emergencies. If Cron faces a lefty a couple times and then a righty comes in get the left handed hitter in there. Of course a lefty might come in later but you have still added an at bat of optimal matchups.
  24. Dantes929
    This unwritten rule stuff is just tiresome. Why not swing on 3-0? Still likely to make an out which would speed up the ending to a lopsided game. If I was the pitcher I would want him to swing on 3-0 rather than throw more pitches to walk him. Maybe a very little tacky but hardly worth a retaliation bean ball pitch which I don't care where it is placed has the potential to seriously injure someone. . I didn't see the game but don't know if I would call Smelzer's outing a rough one. He pitched one fewer innings than Pineda and gave up the same number of runs but with a pretty big lead. He walked one guy but otherwise threw strikes which is what I want from a long relief guy with a large lead.
  25. Dantes929
    I agree its extremely doubtul he maintains his current BA or OBP because his current pace is better than Rod Carew or Tony Gwynn. At every level he has hit at least .318 with at least a .365 OBP and his career average is .331 and .385. If he develops power then great but I think there is still a place for a high on base top of the lineup 2nd baseman. ...................... We can differ on our opinions of Punto and I have nothing to back it up but observation. In 2006 Tony Batista was our Opening Day 3rd baseman and Punto was our utility guy. When Batista was either hurt or cut Punto was the place holder. He hit .290 and was one of the piranha's and lived up to the name. He was a battler and a tough out. When he was named the 3rd baseman in 2007 I could see almost immediately that he was swinging way harder than the prior year. He was hitting more fly balls and striking out more. It was only speculation but I imagined that as a third base man he thought he needed to hit for more power. Its just not who he was. He was valuable as a .290 .352 OBP guy and had little value as a small guy trying to hit home runs. If Arraez can hit .300 with a .360 OBP or better I won't consider him a flawed hitter. I will consider him a good guy to have in the lineup.
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