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Dantes929

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Everything posted by Dantes929

  1. Dantes929
    I am on of those that thought Joe might still have a batting title left in him but no, I don't expect him to hit .372 with a .472 OBP. I don't think his career averages are unattainable though. Of course it is SSS and people forget he had a nice stretch last year fairly early in the season also. I don't recall him looking this solid though. I lhave always wanted him in the 2nd spot (his whole career) and a huge side benefit of not striking out as much is walking more. OBP is still king in my book
  2. Dantes929
    He also had the hit that could just as easily scored Nunez for the game winner. He looks good up there.
  3. Dantes929
    They might me 0-12 without Nunez. He has definitely sparked them. I thought they might start him for Plouffe anyway except Plouffe got hot. Nunez should be playing til they lose again at the very least.
  4. Dantes929
    Yeah, I realize that but it would still allow Arcia to face mainly righties and have value as a late inning defense guy for Arcia. . Just Arcia gets you a worse outfielder and .600 split against lefties. Just Hicks gets you bad ops against righties. As a combo you mitigate some defense liability while combining for an..800 OPS. . It brings more value to the 4 outfielder spot who usually gets fewer than 125 at bats anyway. Just my opinion. I never thought Hicks was mishandled by bringing him up. I thought he was mishandled by letting him switch hit from the start.
  5. Dantes929
    I thought Hicks had a lot of value as a platoon and 4th outfielder. He has a near .800 OPS against lefies and Arcia has near .800 OPS against righties. The greatest mistake with Hicks wasn't bringing him up too early but rather letting him pursue switch hitting. Never made sense to me. The best I would ever hope for from his left side is the same decrease in splits most batters have facing the same side pitching so the greatest upside was what Hicks would probably have done batting right against righties anyway. The downside is what has actually happened. Great value as a platoon/ late inning defense corner outfielder but since no one is using him that way I am fine with the trade.
  6. Dantes929
    I will go back to a previous statement. Some of his learning is on the job. I am ok with that. He has a history of slow starts and as long as he IS learning this can be a very good thing. If he loses confidence that is a different matter. If he is cutting down on strikeouts that means he is adjusting and aggressiveness will come. I didn't expect him to hit .300 or anywhere close out of the gate. Give him a couple hundred at bats and if his 2nd hundred aren't better than his first hundred then revisit.
  7. Dantes929
    I believe this is the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. X happened after y so therefore x was caused by y. There are basically 2 possibilities if he is a bust. 1. He will be a bust because of the way the Twins have handled him or 2. He was going to be a bust no matter what. If he is a success there is a similar thread. 1. He was going to be a success no matter what. 2. He was going to be a bust but being given this opportunity at this time helped him be successful. If he does turn out great I doubt anyone will give the Twins credit even though it might be deserved. If he turns out to be a bust there will be plenty that will blame the Twins even though it might be undeserved. We will never know the cause no matter what the result. People blame the Twins for how they handled Hicks but as far as I am concerned the only thing they should be blamed for is allowing him to work on switch hitting in the first place. Same thing with Ortiz. We know the Twins tried to teach him to use all fields.and that he went to Boxton and had a HOF career. If he had been taught to swing for the right field fences from the start who knows if he would have had that same great career so either the Twins helped him have his HOF career or they had no impact one way or the other. He should maybe be thanking the Twins. He definitely shouldn't be criticizing them.
  8. Dantes929
    Sorry, hard to find the stats but my memory is that he started out very slow and in the neighborhood of .150 and worked his way back to near .250 by the end. ST stats are not all that meaningful but I would say a similar progression is reasonable to expect going forward.
  9. Dantes929
    As was mentioned earlier Trout is a unique player that can be compared to Mickey Mantle rather than as some kind of standard for top prospects. I think McCutcheon is a reasonable and high standard and as has been pointed out wasn't even in the majors at this point. Keep in mind also that not only is Buxton younger he lost a whole year to concussion and who knows what lingering effects that has. I haven't even given up hope that the 2016 Twins are not a flop. I certainly am not going down the road of thinking Byuxton will be.
  10. Dantes929
    I am hoping for it this year. If our pitching stays the same I expect it. I said they might as lose 9 in a row and then win the world series, setting a new standard for teams that are slow out of the gate. Seriously, I have followed this team for a long time and these boards as long. 10 days can make a huge difference in how we see this team. Go 7-3 and the outlook will be different.
  11. Dantes929
    Buxton has a better OPS than Sano and Rosario. Just sayin..
  12. Dantes929
    How in H is he the consensus #1 prospect in all of baseball for 10 years running ( or does it just seem like that long) with this kind of doubt by plenty of national writers? 5 tools are meaningless if the most important tool is doubtful. He should be asked if he has lost faith in what he is doing and if so, be sent down. Until or unless that happens I will assume he is learning on the job and seeing major league pitching for an extended amount of time will pay off.
  13. Dantes929
    I think there is a cumulative effect to multiple concussions but this is a very good point. IMO, the only mishandling of Hicks was to let him try to be a switch hitter in the first place and batting him leadoff to start his career against the best rotation in baseball at the time. I never wanted him sent down because he was still getting on base and doing good things. Once he said I have no idea what I am doing from the left side that it was time to make a change. When Crain said I have no idea where my fastball is going it was time to to make a change. If the difference between major league and minor league stuff is so vast I don't know how facing minor league stuff is going to help him. If he is still going up there with a plan and is seeing a lot of pitches this is a worthwhile thing. If he is going up there without a plan or clue and feels lost then a change should be made.
  14. Dantes929
    I disagree with this completely. 0-162 is their baseline? Its not a good thing to spot the league 7 games anytime but there is no baseline. A young team that starts out poorly is going to press more than when they have some history of success. Losing begets losing and winning begets winning. We don't know what this team is capable of until they loosen up. If there is a baseline it is last year and spring training that says this team is capable of averaging more than 1.8 runs a game and capable of scoring more than 3 runs in any given game. There is no baseline.
  15. Dantes929
    While no team has ever started 0-7 to start the season and made the playoffs many teams have lost at least 7 in a row at some point and still made the playoffs including our own 1970, 1991 and 2003 teams. Might as well lose 3 more in a row and then make the playoffs and really blow people's minds.
  16. Dantes929
    I don't really expect the Twins to replicate the 2006 season. I think the 1985 season is more realistic. I will be interested to see how the players develop. I can easily imagine a similar development arc to the 80's teams but if not, regroup and try again. For me it is more about the journey than the destination. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like the Twins to go on a winning streak.
  17. Dantes929
    The crazy thing was they were 11.5 games, won 21 of their next 23 and were still back.9 games. 2006, 2008 and 2009 were 3 of the closest races in baseball history but 2006 was by far the most fun. For those that always claim Mauer isn't clutch, those were his 3 best years with awesome final months.
  18. Dantes929
    They were also 12 games back in mid July at which point Mike and Mike said stick a fork in them because they are done. . They are 4 games behind leading Chicago. That can be cut in half in two games. The 85 Twins won 2 to start the year then lost 9 in a row, then won 10 in a row and shortly after lost 10 in a row. When they had the losing streaks they were never that bad. When they had the winning streaks they were never that good. This current team was 19-11 in ST with most of their wins coming later as teams were ramping up and they were scoring a lot of runs. They were not that good. They are now 0-7 and not that bad. They are just playing that bad.
  19. Dantes929
    On the injury front I think it worth while to mention that two years ago Sano got an injury that erased a whole year while playing third base. Last year his biggest injury was a pulled ham string while DH'ing which could possibly have been avoided by being loose while playing the outfield. I didn't see the play he blew but he was hitting very poorly before that. He didn't seem to struggle too much in ST while playing the outfield. Jepsen and Perkins were better last year than any of the FA's available and Jepsen was absolutely a shut down guy for us last year. Now Jepsen has already blown more games than he did all last year and Perkins has more blown saves than he did the entire first half of last year. Getting two free agents isn't going to change the fact that Jebsen and Perkins were going to pitch in those situations. Buxton had started to hit in ST and Rosario did very well and now neither can even make contact. My point of all this is that these guys could all just as easily been playing well and we would be 6-0 instead of 0-6. Sometimes it is up to the players we have to actually perform. Instead of someone stepping up as they did to a good ST we have someone failing each time during our miserable season so far. I say so far because it is time for the Twins to go 18-10 from this point.
  20. Dantes929
    According to the pythagorean we won two more games than we should have last year so starting in the hole two games but I am always optimistic and I see a lot of reasons for it compared to last year. Mauer better, Buxton instead of HIcks. Santana for a whole year. Escobar over 2015 D. Santana. Park and Sano instead of Hunter/Arcia/Vargas/Sano. Pen might be shallow but May and Jepsen over who we had for the first half of year. If Duffey was in the rotation from the start I would feel a lot better about predicting 160-2. Instead I will go with 87 wins.
  21. Dantes929
    Well last year all 5 had the Twins finishing dead last and only one had the Royals winning the Central. Apparently before 2011 they were so bad they removed all the pages from the internet.
  22. Dantes929
    I just don't agree with any of this. It was his career year but it wasn't like he didn't build up to it. 2 seasons at AA with 3.41 ERA. Two seasons at AAA with 2.75 ERA. Berrios has 3.22 ERA in two seasons at AA and .3.2 ERA in two seasons at AAA along with zerio track record in the majors while Duffey after terrible debut against the best offense in baseball went 5-0 with 7 out of 9 quality starts and a 2.25 ERA in the heat of a pennant race.. Where is evidence that he is struggling? He was working on a change up that got hit and put him behind in counts. Did teams really figure him out in Spring Training? I don't buy it. I also don't buy the two pitch thing. He has a knee buckling 3-9 curve ball and a sharp biting 11-7 curve ball and everything in between at different speeds which compliments a tailing fastball nicely. Blyleven and Radke had less repertoire. Now maybe his command isn't as good right now and maybe his curve ball isn't as good but ST numbers don't tell me that. If they really want him to have a change up I am ok with him going down but the idea that he doesn't deserve a spot over Nolasco or Berrios has no factual support IMO.
  23. Dantes929
    The team OPS was .704 last year with many of the starters in the mid .700's. Upper .700's from Park would be aces with me. Man just looking at those stats makes me yearn for a career average year from Mauer. I still think he has it in him.
  24. Dantes929
    Kind of describes most of my weekdays.
  25. Dantes929
    I don't like the May decision but understand it. I don't like that Nolasco is in there but hope he does well. I don't understand how anyone thinks Berrios or Nolasco is above Duffey in the pecking order. Duffey was pitching every bit as well in the minors last year when called up and except for one start was awesome and the primary reason we were in the race as long as we were. Its not Nolasco over Berrios that is wrong. It is Nolasco over Duffey.
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